Super Paper Swap
by TheUltimatePsychoFanGirl
Summary: A slight mix up tasks Luigi in saving all worlds from The Void, controlled by the sinister Mistress Tempo. Friendships will be made and tested in an epic, and significantly altered, rewrite of the original Super Paper Mario: Super Paper Swap.
1. Introduction

**Hi guys, I'm TheUltimatePsychoFanGirl, but for everyone's sake, just call me "Psycho". I'm the author of this ridiculous idea so i apologize in advance if you find all this a bit bizarre.**

 **Super Paper Swap is an idea I had for a while but was a bit nonchalant to publish, but since people have started to like it on my Tumblr, I thought I'd write the Fanfiction version that I had intended to make in the first place. Also, this is only my SECOND fanfiction, the first one being "Reboot". While on the topic of "Reboot", I do intend to make that a fully fledged fanfiction as well, just realize that my writing process is incredibly slow, so updates might take months at a time.**

 **And now the disclaimer,**

 **I do not in any way own Super Paper Mario or any of its ideas which are all property of Nintendo. Please support the official release of this game, its predecessors, and futures releases of its series.**

* * *

Countless centuries ago, legends foretold of a book of prophesies that revealed a number of tragic future event. These futures were so terrifying that the book came to be called The Dark Prognosticus and was sealed away for the protection of all that lived. This is the tale of this book's last owner it is a tale of-

Oh? You say you've heard this story before? A tale of four heroes, of tragedy, and of love? I assure you that you might find this version of the story a bit different from what you remember. Don't worry, it's not too different from what you remember, although the details might be a bit "scrambled". Have I caught your attention once more? Then let us continue.

This is the tale of the book's last owner; it is a tale of love.

* * *

Our story begins in the humble home of two brothers, twins in fact, although one was slightly older. Their names were Mario and Luigi. The older of the two, Mario, was a plumber, and a skilled one at that. The younger brother Luigi, while also a plumber, invested more of his time on a different job; he was the famous hero of the two main kingdoms of the land, the Mushroom Kingdom and Koopa Kingdom.

Luigi was well renowned for being noble, if a bit cocky, but always striving to follow the path of justice, so his heart was always in the right place. His social image depicted as a brave and sarcastic hero, but those that were close to Luigi recognized him as a normally gentle person who cherished the fruits of his labor by making the most of every day that goes by without mass chaos interrupting the peace; days such as those were quite rare since there was always something going wrong. Today happened to be one of those peaceful days...for a very brief while.

"Quite a peaceful day, isn't it brother?" asked Mario, who was enjoying a cup of morning tea. The older brother of the residence was wearing his usual attire of a blue shirt under his red overalls with a bright red plumber-cap, adorned with his first initial in a white circle on the front, on his head.

Luigi, whilst in the middle of his own cup of tea, nodded before gulping down what was left of his drink and responding verbally for his brother so he did not come off as rude. "Sure is bro, sure is." Luigi wore the same clothes as his brother, however, instead of red, the younger brother wore green overalls and a green cap, and instead of a "M" on his cap he wore a "L". Both brothers had short, somewhat curly brown hair, a black mustache, sapphire blue eyes, and pale skin that was typical of their Italian ancestors. The peculiar choice of overall color had been a choice made by the brothers' parents when they were little as a way of finding one another if they got lost, after all, no normal parent would buy overalls in a color other than blue. The blue shirts, on the other hand, were consistently bought because they were the cheapest color to buy, no special reason, they were just cheap.

Mario was the older sibling of the two brothers, yet for some reason he was shorter than Luigi, a fact that drove them crazy when people couldn't correctly identify which of them was the oldest. Regardless of the annoyances that came with being twins, the brothers loved each other very much, the real problems, however, arose when it came to personal interests.

"Heh, I almost wish something interesting would happen." Luigi added, "If it were something to unite the kingdoms, that'd be pretty nice."

"Maybe if the entire kingdom was this peaceful all the time," Mario mumbled to himself, "you'd act more like a plumber and less like a lunatic adventurer."

"What was that?" Luigi asked, having caught part of his sibling's response.

"Oh? Nothing little brother, nothing" Mario was hesitant to answer. Unlike everyone else in the land, he didn't approve of his sibling going out on dangerous journeys with such a slim chance of survival. It had been that way since they were babies, a mishap with a stork ended up separating the brothers while being delivered, and poor Luigi had been dropped by the stork. Mario had felt helpless in being able to protect his younger sibling and had taken it upon himself to protect his brother from any harm, a feat that became much more difficult when they grew up and Luigi decided he didn't want to take the family business, plumbing, as a full time job. So as an alternative he decided to keep these feelings to himself, not that it helped since Luigi could always see right through him. Every day Mario hoped that something would convince his brother to stop adventuring, it would at least make people stop asking about his own capabilities as a hero; a major problem with being biologically related to a well-known person was the fact that, once people knew you existed, they expected you to be at just as good at whatever your sibling did that made them famous, and if you were an older sibling you were expected to be greater than them, which wasn't the case for Mario. He wanted nothing to do with traveling to new places or gaining new skills, he was just too stubborn to be convinced of anything, he usually made up for this by making plans for things to do with his brother during off-days.

"Hey bro," Mario perked up after a moment of embarrassment, "how's about we go talk to Princess Peach? Maybe she'll be willing to make some negotiations today."

"If it makes both of our lives easier, sure. Why not?" Luigi replied with a good-humored tone, with both parties satisfied they put away their now empty cups and prepared to leave.

The princess Mario spoke of was the ruler of Mushroom Kingdom, a very bad ruler actually. She was, to put it lightly, a huge jerk to everyone that she didn't consider a citizen of her kingdom. This wouldn't be a problem if she wasn't responsible for removing a number of natural inhabitants of the land from their homes to create the kingdom, not only that, but she was always looking for an excuse to find more territory to conquer. She meant well, but only for the well-being of her people, everyone else was tantamount to a wild animal for all she cared. Luckily, Mario and Luigi were a special exception, if only for the fact that she and Mario were both romantically interested in one another.

The brothers were ready to set off until, "Hey, why're you bringing your hammer?" Mario asked in reference to the hammer his brother carried along as a weapon of choice.

"Just in case the princess decided to cause trouble. Why'd you bring yours?" Luigi retaliated, having noticed Mario brought his hammer as well.

"In case you decide to try something stupid." Mario returned his brother's smart alec remark with one of his own. The two of them laughed at their brotherly humor and left the house.

Not even a minute after leaving, they heard a loud scream and immediately followed the sound to its source.

* * *

The brothers approached the screaming to find one of the inhabitants of the mushroom kingdom, a short, humanoid being wearing a blue vest and a spotted mushroom for a cap, commonly referred to as a toad. The toads were Peach's loyal subjects and relied on her to keep them safe, otherwise they would be in too much constant panic to save themselves. The fact a member of this species was in panic was a bad sign.

"SOMEBODY DO SOMETHING! ANYTHING! HELP!" The mushroom man continued to shout until the two brothers were able to calm him down.

Mario was the first to step forward and speak with the still shaken toad, "Look at me bud," he stood in the toad's line of sight and clasped his hands around its head, "What's going on? What's with the calls for help? Talk to me." He spoke in a voice that was stern but also collected, it was his way of calming people down when they were anxious or scared and it seemed to work well on toads.

"You wouldn't b-b-believe it!" The toad began, stuttering occasionally," Our c-castle was raided, and the princess was-was-"

"Was what?"

"KIDNAPPED!"

"WHAT?!", both Mario and Luigi asked in shock.

"But how? Usually you guys are the ones causing such chaos, and most of the time you only go after koopas as opposed to princesses." Mario wasn't wrong, normally Peach would send her followers to capture members of the Koopa Kingdom for forced labor, their King would be captured a brainwashed to do her bidding until Luigi came in to fix everything. With this in mind, one would think the princess of the Mushroom Kingdom would be prepared in case someone tried to kidnap her in retaliation, but somehow her captor had gotten the upper hand on her.

"Sounds to me like the tables were completely turned on you guys." Luigi couldn't help but bring up the irony of the situation. Mario on the other hand was incredibly worried, he let go of the toad and paced around his brother to assess the situation.

"We should get as much help as possible. I'm sure our old turtle friends won't mind a visit if it means getting on the princess's good side." Mario was referring to the koopa troopas that inhabited the Koopa Kingdom who had the appearance of man-sized, bipedal turtles. The koopa race was quite peaceful and desperately wanted to make peace with the Mushroom Kingdom, so the brothers knew the likelihood of both kingdoms negotiating would increase if the koopas were able to help.

Luigi was surprised by his brother's automatic decision to ask the koopas for help since Mario wasn't very fond of them for being "troublemakers"; by troublemakers, he meant that their tendency to be captured was usually the main reason Luigi had to save their king.

It then dawned on the little brother that Mario must have been incredibly desperate to save the princess if his first instinct was to find help for people he normally disliked. With that in mind he was quick to agree with his brother before a second thought could be made. "Good idea bro! Let's go on ahead then, shall we?"

Mario didn't hesitate to follow his younger sibling as they moved onward towards the volcanic region of Koopa Kingdom. The toad, in shock from the events that had unfolded in about a minute, decided to only watch the brothers from afar and ponder as to wether or not asking two plumbers to save the kingdom's acclaimed princess was the best choice of action.

* * *

In the heart of Darkland, the volcanic region of the Koopa Kingdom, was a castle made of grey brick and decorated in several places with black igneous rock, this castle was the home of Bowser, the Koopa King, and his supporters, with whom he was having a meeting with in the central room of the castle.

"Alright gang," said a deep and monstrous sounding voice, "today we will attempt to enact diplomacy between us and the Mushroom Kingdom!" This voice belonged to non-other than Bowser himself, who gave a tender smile to his allies which consisted of a variety koopa troopa and short, brown mushroom people known as goombas. Bowser himself was a much larger koopa with orange scales, a cream colored belly, a green face, red eyes, and red hair. The spike on his green shell, the horns on his head, and even the two spikes on his tail were neatly filed down to half their normal size to appear less threatening. He worn no clothes except for the thick, cuff-like bracelets on his wrists, upper arms, and around his neck; the cuffs had been around him since the day he was first manipulated by Peach, even now the princess was the only one that could remove them, and she always refused to do so, maybe today she would have a change of heart.

The crowd in front of Bowser roared with excitement, anticipating their adoring king's speech. Bowser smiled and spoke as calmly as his naturally booming voice could.

"Today, we will march onward to Mushroom Castle and negotiate a truce with Princess Peach; with the help of our friends, the plumbers Mario and Luigi, we will finally unite all species in this land for the betterment of everyone!" The crowd roared even louder than before, the winged parakoopas and paragoombas summersaulted in mid-air, hammer tossing Hammer Bros. noogied each other and linked arms, and hooded magikoopas swung their wands in a type of ceremonious dance. Very faintly, the word "guests" begin to pop up from the chatter between Bowser's supporters until it was audible to his non-existent ears.

"We have guests?", Bowser was a little surprised that anyone would visit him but was happy to welcome them inside anyway. "Hehe, why didn't anyone say something beforehand? Move aside gang, give our visitants some room to breathe." And so they did, revealing none other than Mario and Luigi as the King of Koopas approached the center of the room. The sight of the brothers brought a big, dumb smile on Bowser's face as he greeted the two of them.

"Well if it isn't my two good friends, how've you guys been?"

"Fine Koopa, fine." Mario muttered, just loud enough to be heard. Luigi stood and watched the exchange between his brother and his friend, having insisted that Mario talk to Bowser since he was the one that decided to ask for his help.

"That's good to know. What's brings you two here anyway?"

"You mean besides abusing the fact you always leave the front gate open?"

"I have a very good reason for that!"

"Princess Peach was kidnapped!" Luigi interjected, trying to avoid the start of an argument. "We thought you'd be willing to gather a search party to help us find her."

"Kidnapped?!" Bowser was in shock, "That's absolutely terrible, it's a good thing you came to us when you did we were-" his sentence was interrupted. A voice broke out.

"Release me! Release me at once!" The voice spoke, seemingly from nowhere.

Suddenly, a wave of energy coursed through everyone as a figure trapped in a magical barrier appeared, floating several feet above Mario, Luigi, and Bowser. Immediately, everyone recognized the figure as non-other than Princess Peach herself. She was between Luigi and Bowser's heights but had the same skin and eye color as the brothers; she was wearing a black dress with magenta below knee height, and an orange broach on her chest. She wore a pair of white gloves that went up to her elbows, a sash around her waist, colored magenta, and a golden crown lined with circular, orange and magenta gems placed on her seemingly delicate, blond hair. Everyone knew that Peach was not a force to be reckoned with, despite her dainty appearance, and if the incredibly unamused look on her face was an indication of anything, it was that the person responsible for containing was in for an unpleasant experience once she found a way out.

The barrier shifted to the right a few feet to make way for the next person that entered the room. This new arrival was somebody no one in the room had met before. It was a young woman of around the same height as Peach, if a little taller, wearing a long, sleeveless dress. The dress was white with a black sash around the neck and the waist and thin trims on the bottom of the dress in various shades of grey. The woman herself was slightly pale and had long, white hair with a rainbow bow, in the shape of a butterfly, tied into it. She floated in the air with her eyes closed and one hand clasping a black, heart-shaped locket that was around her neck.

The neutral expression on her face turned to that of malice as she opened her dark purple eyes and looked down upon her audience. "I'm afraid your dearest princess has been taken by no- other than me, Mistress Tempo." The evil woman introduced herself, her voice sounding like that of an angel that had recently fallen from the heavens.

"You kidnapped Peach?", Bowser asked, feeling a chill go down his spine as Tempo seemed to look through his very soul, "I can understand wanting her as a close ally, but I doubt she's going to be on good terms with you when she gets out of that barrier you've trapped her in."

She laughed at his response, "Hehehe, such a silly little turtle. You do not understand my reason for capturing the princess, I require this royal maiden for the destruction of all worlds." She spoke in a "matter-of-fact" sort of way.

"The destruction of all worlds?" Mario asked in the faintest of whispers, his eyes wide open in terror. He was about to pull out his hammer, but suddenly-

"Not on my watch lady!" Luigi jumped up to tackle Tempo to the ground, but was halted when a magic box trapped him in mid-air. He couldn't escape.

"What? How did you-" His was interrupted as the box exploded and dropped Luigi on the ground, unconscious and badly damaged. Mario immediately ran to Luigi's side, calling out his younger brother's name, but his words fell on deaf ears.

"I'm afraid petty fools cannot fair against our power." Said Mistress Tempo, she glanced at a corner of the room, as if someone else was there, and then down on Luigi with a saddened look in her eyes.

While everyone else was taken aback by the mistress's power, Bowser was quite upset by the events that had unfolded and decided to resolve the situation before more of his allies were harmed.

"Now you listen here Missy! You can come into my castle uninvited all you like, but when you kidnap and assault my friends, THAT'S WHEN YOU'VE GONE TOO FAR! THAT IS WHEN I ABSOLUTELY CANNOT ACCEPT YOUR COMPANY!" Bowser yelled at the top of his lungs, blood boiling like molten lava.

"GO GET HER TEAM!" The enraged Koopa King fiercely ordered, his followers obeyed and closed in on the mistress.

Tempo looked at the army around her, clearly annoyed. "Very well then, in that case, Bowser, King of the Koopas, I shall take you and your 'friends' as well."

"Wait, what?" asked a rather confused Bowser.

Mistress Tempo smirked as she materialized a baton in her hands and raised it into the air; from behind Tempo, a black vortex opened up and pulled almost everyone in room into itself. The various screams were heard until the vortex closed, leaving only Tempo herself and Luigi still visibly in the room.

"Hm hm hm," Mistress Tempo appeared to speak to herself, "preparations are finally in order, and I barely had to strain myself. Now all that remains is for the dimensional void to appear as foretold in the prophesy."

With that, she vanished as quickly as she appeared, leaving only Luigi. An unknown amount of time later, he began to hear a voice calling to him.

* * *

 **There we go, the first chapter.**

 **Hope you guys enjoyed.**

 **If you want to see more Super Paper Swap between chapters, then just pop on over to it's official tumblr blog of the same name, a simple tumblr search should do it.**

 **And with that, I say Adios!**


	2. Prologue

**We're back! Sorry this took as long as it did, between writing chapters for Paper Mario Reboot, my senior year in high school, accidentally digging myself a grave in the OFF fandom that I have yet to fully escape from, and compiling an actual list for all the Flipside-Flopside citizen swaps, writing this chapter has been slow.**

 **Special thanks to AmberAngelle and MagicQuill42 for their nice comments, and a thank you to all 24 of you folks following super-paper-swap on Tumblr, everyone's interest in this silly little fic means a lot to me.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I don't own Super Paper Mario or any other game of the Mario series, they all belong to Nintendo. Please support their initial releases.**

* * *

Princess Peach gradually awoke to the sound of distant mumbling. She didn't dare open her eyes due to the terrible ache in her head that felt like a pebble violently shoved into her cranium. She wasn't lying on the floor or floating in mid-air, she was standing on solid ground. She wanted to rub her head, but she was already holding something in both hands.

"Ooooh" She moaned from the pain of her migraine, "Where am I?"

There was a sweet and sinister sound of muffled laughter, "Mhmhmm, rise and shine your highness." The voice was familiar, too familiar.

Peach strained to open her eyes, but when she finally did, she desperately wished she hadn't. Before her was an alter with Bowser, somehow wearing a white tux, on the opposite side of it and floating behind the alter was Mistress Tempo with a suspicious looking book floating beside her. She looked down to find herself wearing not her usual dress, but instead a white wedding gown. In her hands was a bouquet of matching flowers, their fragrance seemed to lessen the pain flooding her head.

A great cheer erupted from behind Bowser, the sound of a thousand koopas and goombas in celebration. The sound made her feel ill, these creatures had no right to be happy, they were a nuisance and a threat to her people.

"Wh-what's going on?" The princess asked, her question came out as a mumble from the splitting headache.

A small pulse of energy dispersed next to Tempo, and from its source appeared a most peculiar being. He was roughly Mario's height, maybe taller, wearing some sort of yellow robe so long that it looked like it would fold upon itself if its wearer were on the ground and a shawl over his shoulders that hid his hands from visibility. His seemingly distraught face appeared to be a mask, white on right side, black on the other; he had a yellow hat with tiny ears poking from the top and three purple stems from what might have been a jester's hat jutting out from underneath the first hat and being weighed down by golden bells. Around his neck was a blue collar with another bell underneath the chin that seemed to hold up the shawl.

"Ah, Dimentio, what news do you have?" Tempo spoke to the strange jester-creature, apparently called 'Dimentio'.

"Preparations are complete Mistress! You are free to begin the ceremony as you please." Dimentio exclaimed, his voice seemed to flutter as he spoke. One of the stems twitched, as if alerted by something, and turned his head in the direction of the twitch, towards Princess Peach. The assistant cowered a bit at her sight.

"Chao my friend, you must be Princess Peach. It is pleasure to meet you." Dimentio bowed to the princess and then turned back towards Tempo, his voice becoming timid when he spoke to Peach, almost like he was scared of an unfamiliar face.

'At least he was polite.' Thought Peach.

"Yes, this is our lucky lady!" Tempo said with a childlike grin. "Now how about we begin?"

The sound of bells replaced the chattering of the audience below, Tempo faced the alter, still grinning like an idiot. She cleared her throat before speaking in a more proper and serious tone.

"Bowser, fearsome King of the Koopas, do you take Peach to be your lawfully wedded wife 'till your games be over?"

Peach looked towards Bowser, his expression showed hesitation as he stared back at her.

"Y-yes?" He stuttered, looking back at the monotone dressed woman.

Tempo broke her composure as cracked another grin and began to giggle to herself. She was quick to readjust and continued with the ceremony.

"Peach, noble and pure-hearted princess, do you take Bowser to be your lawfully wedded husband 'till your games be over?"

"HOLD ON THERE LADY!" Peach wasn't having any more nonsense; she was going to get answers. "Under royal decree, I DEMAND that you tell me what's going on this instant!"

"Heeheehee, isn't it obvious your highness? This is your wedding!" Tempo was absolutely giddy with childlike amusement towards the nonsensical events that were unfolding. This behavior had begun to tick off Peach, especially since the Mistress had acted so formal and benevolent before. It was like the change in scenarios had made her into a different woman.

"Ok," the princess grumbled, "but why, in the name of whatever divine being you believe in, am I marrying THAT goody-goody, bumbling, buffoon?!"

"Um, yeah, and what's with the 'fearsome king' thing you said earlier? I hope you meant to say 'friendly king', that sounds a bit more fitting." Bowser interjected, albeit nervously.

"Stay out of this Koopa!"

It was at this point that the two decided to bicker, ironically enough, like an old married couple while Tempo proceeded to laugh at the insanity before her and the audience members murmured amongst themselves.

"Please princess, I'm just as lost on the details as you are, but this lady seems to have gone to a lot of trouble to plan this event and something tells me she's not going to take 'no' as an answer. Let's just go with it, maybe this marriage will be good for us."

"No! Absolutely not! And who picked out this RAG of a wedding dress?! It's awful!" The princess, in a fit of rage, threw the bouquet in her hands at the hysterical Mistress Tempo. Her anger seemed to skew her angle, causing the flowers to instead hit the Mistress's unfortunate assistant square in the face. Tempo's laughter was halted by the sudden assault towards Dimentio, her expression switched to that of confusion as she eyeballed Peach.

"I demand to be returned to my castle this instant!" Peach proclaimed with her arms crossed.

She heard a single snap of fingers, and suddenly her headache became unbearable, it felt like something was both worming itself into her thoughts and clawing its way out of her skull. Numbness and a strange, controlling force spread through her body; she stood up strait, stiff as a plank, staring directly at the opposite side of the alter. Dimentio, who had been flailing about seconds prior, was upright again and holding his right hand in preparation for a snapping motion. The distraught on his face looked more like worry.

"I apologize Princess, but your sudden lashing out is somewhat unnecessary. Please don't make this any harder than it has to be and answer Mistress Tempo's question.

"Do you, Princess Peach, take Bowser to be your wedded husband 'till your games be over?"

"No." Peach refused, the pain was making her dizzy.

"I was going to be gentle, but you leave me no choice." Dimentio snapped his fingers, the pain increased exponentially. Something in her mind took hold, her thoughts overrun with ideas that weren't her own.

"Now Peach," Tempo glared at the princess with a deadpan look, "do you take Bowser to be your husband?"

"...yes...I...d-do..." As soon as she finished speaking, Princess Peach collapsed to the ground; a small green sprout was faintly noticeable on her head, having been previously hidden by her crown.

The entire room shook like an earthquake, the crowd erupted with screams of panic and fear. Near the very back of the crowd, a certain red plumber was startled awake from unconsciousness by the commotion.

"What the-? Where am I?!" Mario managed to pick himself up and get his bearings. He quickly recognized three of the figures at the top of the staircase.

"HEY! What's going on here?!" He began to push and shove his way to the top.

A blinding black light emitted from the alter with a large, shadowy, and ominous heart-shaped object at its center, seeming to leak with destructive power. The heart rose up to Mistress Tempo, who began to laugh, this time with a more maniacal tone.

"HAhahaha! Finally, we have unleashed the Chaos Heart, as was written in the Dark Prognosticus!"

"Marvelous work my mistress!" Dimentio chipped in, the whimsical flutter in his voice reappearing.

"HALT FIENDS!" Mario stepped in, finally reaching the alter.

"Oh? Who might you be?" Tempo asked, her curiosity peaked by the small man. "I don't believe we've been formally introduced."

"Mario. Plumber and older brother. I'm here to stop you before cause any more trouble then you already have!" He pulled out his hammer and prepared for a powerful attack. Dimentio flew between Mario and the Chaos Heart in a defensive stance.

"Please wait a moment sir! There's no telling what might happen if you're not care-" He was caught off-guard by the plumber actually throwing his hammer at him. The impact forced the assistant to collide with the Chaos Heart. Neither Dimentio nor the Chaos Heart were damaged, but the small jester still clutched his head after the attack.

"Beat it freak-face! I'm here to take down your grayscale boss! Huh?" Mario noticed a sudden reaction with the Chaos Heart.

The physical contact with Dimentio seemed to cause the heart activate its power; the entire room rumbled and the already blinding light grew so bright that all vision was completely obscured.

Sometime later, the light cleared, revealing an empty room. Tempo, Dimentio, and the ominous book, known as the Dark Prognosticus, reappeared unharmed.

"Are you alright Mistress?"

"Perfectly fine my friend. I'm not sure what I can say for the other though, but I'm assuming they're still in one piece." She turned to him. "The Chaos Heart is secure and ready for use, please try to round up the members of our wedding crash, they might be of help to us."

"Yes Mistress!" He paused. "So I suppose you are prepared to turn to a new page of dark prophesies?"

"Yes, we shall put them to good use." She held her arms high up into the air, "Darkness, open wide your mouth! Consume all worlds as is foretold in the prophecy, and give us your power to use as we desire!"

* * *

"Hey!"

There was a voice.

"Wake up!"

There it was again.

"Luigi! Wake up!"

It was calling to him, loud and clear. His eyes opened very slowly, it took a while for him to see the creature, but it was there. Right before him, on the ground he lay upon, was a sort of fusion between a pixie and a bat.

The bat-shaped creature was completely blue and seemed to be made out of polygonal shapes. The "wings" were like an outline for a right triangle but with the 90 degree point facing upwards and the line itself having the thickness of being drawn with a large highlighter. There were three much smaller triangles that were positioned like ears and a tail. This bat was just the right size to fit inside a hollowed-out watermelon of normal size, which was surprising tiny compared to bats Luigi was familiar with that were typically man-sized. The pixie-like part came from the way the body seemed to glisten and shine in the light. He could almost make out a pair of eyes and a fanged mouth that glowed an orange tint, but only when he squinted, almost like it was an invisible face of sorts.

"Are you awake yet?" The bat asked in a surprisingly creepy tone.

Luigi instinctually grabbed his hammer from his side to swing at the creature. As soon as he stood upright, the pain from earlier rushed back to him. The damage inflicted from just one attack was overwhelming, how could one person be so strong? He used the hammer as a crutch.

"Hey now! Don't freak out!" The bat flew up to Luigi's eye level, "This is just the way I talk." I's voice, although not as creepy as initially thought, was still a bit unnerving, but the squeaking sound it made things a little more humorous.

"You wouldn't happen to be Luigi would you?"

"Who's asking?"

"I'm asking!"

"And you would be?"

"Blecky! Bleh heh heh!" The bat introduced himself with pride in his voice. "I'm a pixl, a special type of fairy." Well, Luigi was almost right with assuming he was a pixie.

"Hey, you wouldn't happen to have met a lady called Mistress Tempo would you? And with a princess and monstrous king as her captives?" Blecky asked Luigi with concern.

"Well," Luigi scanned the room, "judging on the lack of people in this room, I'd say yes and double yes."

The pixl briefly flinched, "Oh geez, so she's already beginning to form the void..." There was a hint of anger as he spoke. "We don't have much time, come with me!"

"What?!" Luigi wasn't given much time to react as the bat latched onto his chest and he began to feel a spinning sensation. For a second, he neither felt nor saw anything; even the pain from before seemed nonexistent.

When the spinning ceased, Luigi was no longer in Bowser's Castle. Instead, he was on a plateau made of some sort of white brick or other building material. The ground he stood upon had a design completely alien to him and the sky was an odd khaki color. Blecky let go of Luigi and flew about a foot away from him while a figure approached them. Luigi slowly stood up to observe them.

The figure in question was female wearing a red, flowing gown with a yellow, and somehow segmented, sash over her shoulders. She wore a yellow, pointed turban similar to one worn by a fortune teller with a four-point star hanging at the end. Her face was obscured by a large pair of red glasses and a white cloth with a faintly visible star patter covering her mouth. Her yellow-orange hair was held around the back by the turban to appear incredibly short and curly. She seemed young, but something told Luigi that she may have been ancient and simply didn't act her age.

"Blecky my dear," asked the mystery woman "who is this you've brought here?" She examined Luigi from afar, "Shirt of blue, trousers green, and a mustache cut crisp and clean! A lucky find my little Blecky!"

"He must be one of the four mentioned in the Light Prognosticus, there's no doubting it! Oh, and his name's Luigi."

"Can someone explain what's happening right now?" Luigi asked, clearly confused by the whole situation.

"Of course my friend, let me come to your end." She moved next to Blecky. "Welcome to Flipside, a town between dimensions. It's quite far from the Mushroom Kingdom, and that's no pretension.

"My name is Merlee, descended from the crafters of the town you see. I study ancient texts to stop the end of all worlds from the vortex above us that swirls." She directed her attention to something directly above them. Surely enough, there was a small, black and purple vortex up in the sky, occasionally lightning seemed to spark inside of it and a purple mist would appear and disappear at random.

"What is that?" Luigi asked, he felt like he was going to be asking many questions in the near future.

"That is The Void my dear, a hole in the fabric of space. It's location we cannot quite trace, it will, in time, grow large enough to consume all and leave nothing in its place. It was created by Mistress Tempo, the woman who has given you woe. She wields the Dark Prognosticus, a most sinister tome; its dark prophesies foretell our doom." Merlee spoke with a solemn tone.

"'A fair and lovely princess...a furious monster king...the union of these two will call forth the Chaos Heart, the consumer of worlds...and the Chaos Heart will ravage the sky, and so bring forth The Void'" The bat's words sounded prophetic and bold.

"This quote is from the Light Prognosticus of my ancestors long ago, another passage in it goes as so: 'The Void will swallow all...naught can stop it...unless the one protected by the dark power is destroyed. The hero with the power of eight Pure Hearts will rise to this task.' Now hero, this I ask..."

She then pulled out a large heart-shaped object that glowed many brilliant shades of red; the gentle touch of its shining rays on Luigi's skin seemed to heal him of all his wounds as the pain that was bothering him before immediately disappeared when the heart appeared. It floated just above the mystic woman's head.

"Will you take this Pure Heart whose light upon which you bask?" Merlee asked, her voice trembled, as if the possibility of him saying 'no' absolutely haunted her.

"I can't say no to such a desperate request," Said Luigi, "especially if the universe is in danger. Merlee, I accept my destined task, and with it, the Pure Heart with which you beseech upon me!" The spark of his inner heroism shined in his eyes as he spoke. Despite her face being obscured, Merlee was obviously smiling when she was given his response.

"Excellent Luigi, with that I bestow the Pure Heart onto thee!" The heart floated to Luigi, descending from above him into his arms, surprising him with how light it was for its size.

"Blecky," Merlee looked back to the bat, "please lead Luigi to the heart pillar of this town, I'm sure he could use you to get around."

"Righto!" The bat flew in front of Luigi's face, "Follow me!"

The green plumber did as the bat asked; they went down an elevator in the left-hand area of the plateau. As they went down, it turned out the plateau was actually the top of a giant white tower in the dead center of Flipside; there were at least two visible floors below the top of the tower, but Blecky insisted there were three floors and a basement, he mumbled something about a second basement as they exited the main lift connecting the second floor and the tower.

There was a fence a number of feet away from their side that seemed to block out some outskirts of town complimented by another fence behind the tower. There were two large buildings on each side of the tower and an elevator between each building.

The buildings seemed small at first glance, but the distance between them made the rest of their structures visible, showing them to be a bit more spacious then initially thought. To the left of Flipside Tower was a house of warm, sunny colors and three noticeable star-shaped windows above the door; to its left was an elevator button to the third floor and a cream colored shop with a red roof. The right side of town had an inn with the same coloration as the shop, a currently inactive elevator button for the first floor, and a cream colored building with a green roof, housing the town fortune teller, as opposed to Merlee who only looked like a fortune teller. The town was scattered with different people that all appeared as if they were made of geometric shapes, they were friendly, but Luigi was a little unnerved by them.

Blecky led Luigi to the left side of town to the third floor elevator which magically materialized around the two when the button was pressed and quickly took them up. The third floor wasn't much to look at, two fences on either side and a view of the outskirts, but on the opposite side of the floor was a white pillar with a tiny of amount red barely visible at the bottom and a heart shaped opening facing the outskirts. Looking up, Luigi could once again see the sky, and in addition to that was a view of Flipside Tower in its entirety; it had to have been about a hundred feet tall based on how Luigi was standing.

"Come on Luigi! Over here to the Heart Pillar!" Called out Blecky, the bat had already flow over to the other side of the floor, bursting with excitement. Luigi passed by two townsfolk, one of them a young girl that was fascinated by the void's mysterious nature; he decided to not tell her about the true nature of the vortex and simply let her admire it.

As he approached the Heart Pillar, he felt a resonance from the Pure Heart that grew strong the closer he got to it. When he finally reached the pillar, the Pure Heart seemed ready to launch itself out of his arms.

"Set it free Luigi!"

Luigi did as Blecky said, the Heart Pillar sent out a pulse of energy that pushed him back ever so slightly; the Pure Heart flew ever so gracefully into the hole on the pillar, glowing ever brighter. The light made clockwork patterns around the heart for several seconds before finally dissipating.

He felt something gently sit itself upon his head. Two tiny, familiar ears peaked from above into his field of vision.

"Hi there." Blecky chirped in a bat-like fashion. "I'm tired; you know your way back to the tower right?"

Luigi nodded as the bat nestled for a nap. Before Luigi could walk to the elevator, he was approached by the little girl from before. "Hey Mister, have you seen that hole in the sky?" She hopped about in anticipation.

"Yes, I have. It's pretty scary looking isn't it? Hopefully it won't hurt anyone." He rubbed the back of his neck as he answered, nervous that the child would ask about the intimidating vortex. Instead he was surprise when the child looked at him with confusion, was it something he said?

"Scary? You're a really weird mister, assuming something is gonna hurt someone because it's scary. Maybe it only looks scary and is actually very nice." She giggled, her innocence keeping her blissfully unaware of how dangerous the Void truly was. "My name's Ellie, what's yours?"

"Luigi." The plumber answered and cracked a grin when little Ellie danced around him, repeating him name between fits of laughter as if she had heard the funniest name in existence, her pigtails bopping up and down with every movement. An older man walked towards the two, drawing Ellie's attention. She ran towards him excitedly, the conversation they had was unintelligible to Luigi. He headed in their direction, towards the elevator, Ellie waving goodbye as he passed by her and who he assumed was her father.

Back on the second floor, Luigi decided to examine some of the buildings before making his way to the top of Flipside Tower. Through the glass door of the shop, there was a taller woman setting up items for her future customers, her golden hair was held up in a messy bun. The sun-colored house had a note on the door, "Merlee is out, please wait for her to be about." was written on it in the fanciest cursive he'd ever laid eye on, this was obviously Merlee's house. On the other side of town he could see a cloaked head peaked out of the door of the fortune teller's house, briefly glancing in Luigi's direction near Merlee's house and the tower elevator before cowering back inside and locking the door.

Walking to the space between the rhyming shaman's house and the tower, Luigi felt the need to jump, as if there was an invisible object of importance there that somehow saved him from a nonexistent problem; this was a normal feeling for him that usually only appeared in places of importance. He jokingly referred to these particular spots of personal security as 'save points' and never bothered to question why they existed, they just did, and that was perfectly fine.

By the time he had made it back to the top of the tower, he was surprise to see a red door next to the elevator, engraved in a number of clockwork patterns. Merlee stood in front of the door, admiring it like it was work of art. Blecky woke from from his slumber and flew to the mesmerized shaman woman, when she did not say anything, the bat instead nudged her for attention, startling her out of her trance.

"Look my dear, a door does appear! This dimensional door will do its part to lead you to the next Pure Heart. Blecky," she then turned to the pixl, "use your powers to guide our friend through the new space. When the Pure Heart is found, please return to this place."

"But of course!" He replied with no complaint.

Merlee handed a small, red-and-white striped object that looked similar to the warp pipes of the Mushroom Kingdom to the green plumber.

"So long as a signal to this return pipe is near, its power will return you here. Use it when you must my dear." So explained Merlee about the so-called 'return pipe' she had given him.

"A friend mine lives here, Bestovius is his name. The Light Prognosticus foretells he will grant one the power to flip through the dimensional plane. Go forth hero; let your destiny be claimed!" With those last words, the shaman woman allowed Luigi entrance through the door.

Our hero's adventure was beginning!

* * *

Elsewhere, in a dark, sinister, and rather large room, Mistress Tempo was having a meeting with Dimentio and two of her three other high-ranked followers. Dimentio stood to the Mistress' left, silently and slightly behind her, while the other minions were several feet in front of her, enthralled even by the sight of their emotionally unstable leader.

"Good news everyone, our beautiful Void has successfully ripped itself into the dimensional fabric of space itself, just as foretold in the Dark Prognosticus. It's only a matter of time until it consumes all these sad and sorrowful worlds." Tempo spoke out in an overly enthusiastic manner.

"That sounds absolutely superb my Mistress. You'll erase all those troublesome worlds and rebuild without war or fear, just as you promised, correct?"

"Of course Mimi, I have not backed down from my word in the slightest; our perfect worlds will arrive in due time." Tempo replied to Mimi, a young woman roughly Dimentio's height, if shorter, with green skin and matching green hair held up in a sporty-looking ponytail. Her yellow tube dress, sporting a red collar and belt, fell to the knees of her thin, black, mechanical legs. Her fuller exposed arms were just like her legs, and her eyes were empty and constantly stern-looking.

"If I might ask Mistress, where is our other co-worker? He is late to our meeting." The woman next to Mimi commented.

The woman, known as Nastasia, was an older woman, although she showed no signs of being any specific age. Her skin was a dark blue color that aggressively clashed with her messy, hot pink hair with purple highlights; the bangs were, for the most part, brushed to her left side while the rest of her hair was held up in the sloppiest bun imaginable, the fact it stayed up seemed to defy all laws of physics. Two fanged peaked out of her red-lipped mouth and her eyes were completely obscured by her orange, oval-framed glasses. She dressed similar to a ringleader, but not quite. The 'tie' she wore was a white, circular gem with a orange metallic bat wing on either side, the jagged trim of a white shirt revealed itself from underneath a magenta colored suit with a single white button and the sleeves folded up slightly to reveal the inside of the suit as completely white. Her knee-length pants were grey, puffy, and had a decorative white gem on either leg; her legs were otherwise covered up by white knee-high socks and her black, one-inch-high-heels. Her most important feature was her cape, externally, white at the top, but slowly speckling down into a light pink in the middle, to a light blue at the bottom; the inside was, oddly enough, the same color of purple as The Void outside the giant windows on the left and right walls of the room.

"Do not fret Nastasia, our friend is merely building his strength, he is a man of war after all, and a man of war must train himself if he wishes to bring himself closer to the end of conflict." Tempo's reply was more annoyed to the pseudo-ringleader than it was to Mimi, as Nastasia was constantly trying to find an excuse to get her co-workers in trouble, and, if not that, to cause mayhem amongst said co-workers to coax them into, at the very least, arguing with one another.

"Quite ironic wouldn't you think? To bring a man of war into an effort to remove things such as war from the universe?" Nastasia back-sassed to her boss, knowing that Tempo was far too kind to ever fire her.

Tempo did not reply to this comment directly, instead she looked away, the annoyance now completely obvious, as she mumbled something about different stroke for different minions, she quickly returned to her enthusiastic demeanor, "Disregarding Nastasia's comment, let us discuss more important matters. The Dark Prognosticus is our recipe to ending these rotten worlds of old and making all of our dreams come true, and like every recipe, we must follow its instructions carefully, otherwise it will become a recipe for disaster instead. Dimentio," she directed to conversation to the immediately startled loyal assistant, "what are the whereabouts of our green friend from the Mushroom Kingdom? Does he live?"

"Miraculously enough, yes. Yes he does." The jester fidgeted as he spoke, seeming put off by something.

"Excellent, deliver him here to us then."

"About that..."

"Hm?"

"I'm afraid he's no longer in the castle or that dimension."

"...oh..." Tempo was silent. She clasped her hand over the necklace in a brief moment of concentration. She gave him a forgiving smile and release the necklace from her grasp, "That's ok then. Do we have a clue where he's at?"

"I can sense dimensional disturbances in a further off dimension, it's most likely the hero of prophesy." The purple stems attached to Dimentio's head shuddered, not from fear but rather from the disturbance.

"Really? Heroes will be heroes I suppose. Mimi, I know your power alone will be enough to halt his progress, but just in case he decides to put up a fight, do not under any circumstances end his game. Weaken him until he can no longer stand his ground and deliver him here. Keeping this man alive is vital to ensuring our success!" Mistress Tempo commanded her follower with delicacy and precision, making sure she understood every word.

"With pleasure my Mistress." Mimi turned to her feminine co-worker, "Nastasia, would you be interested in coming along? I know you have important vampire business to be attending to, but I think this would be worth your time, you know, female bonding time and such."

"Why not? I've not much better to do, and watching you fight brings shivers down my spine. As for that vampire comment, I'll let it slide for now. Just don't be surprised if there's a swarm of bats in your room somewhere down the line." Nastasia was quick to answer Mimi, never ceasing to contain her off-putting grin.

"Oh! And be sure to update our friend before you leave!" Tempo hastily requested to the two women before before they teleported away.

"So, you wish to stop me?" Mistress Tempo asked quietly. "Clearly you do not see error in the worlds we live in." She held her arms out wide, as if ready to preach to the heavens above, "No matter, I will be your guiding light, and show you to the path to eternal joy. Hurry if you must hero, for it will not be long before these worlds meet their end!"

* * *

 **The adventure now truly begins!**

 **My plan for the in-game chapters, aka the "x-1, x-2, x-3, x-4" segments of the story, is that I'll be writing all four chapter segments together and then releasing them one week at a time. It'll still be a wait, but you'll be getting four chapters within the span of a single month when I finish them. So hopefully you guys like the waiting game.**

 **If your impatient however, come stop by the previously mention Tumblr blog for this story, it's another reason I've been slow to update. You can ask questions to any and all members of the Swapped cast, including characters from swapped versions of other Mario games, and roleplay with them as well. You can even drop by for the occasional fun fact, its really cool.**

 **And with that, Adios.**


	3. Chapter 1-1: The Adventure Unfolds

**This is a week behind my intended schedule...ah well. Time for reviews!**

 **AmberAngelle: Yeah, Nassy taking the role as Dimentio is SUPER WEIRD. But you wanna know what's even weirder? Dimentio was originally going to replace Merlon. MERLON. Needless to say, I think this is better. And thank you for the compliment and liking the Mistress, it means a lot.**

 **jeremy1555: Don't worry friend, Luigi is the definition of quick!**

 **DISCLAIMER: I don't own Super Paper Mario or anything else made by Nintendo. If I did that would be amazing, but I don't, so deal with it.**

* * *

In a feat far greater than anything before, Luigi had been tasked with saving not one world, but all worlds in the universe. This, of course, would not be a small task. Could he really prevent Mistress Tempo from from pulling off her sinister plot? Would he reunite with his friends and brother? These and many more questions buzzed through Luigi's brain as he transversed the very fabrics of space to the start of a truly inter-dimensional adventure.

 **Chapter 1-1**

 **The Adventure Unfolds**

A bright morning sun greeted Luigi and Blecky when they passed through the other side of the red door. To Luigi's surprise, all traces of said door quickly vanished when it closed behind them. Leaving an empty spot where it had previously stood.

The world of Lineland was a typical plane: grass everywhere, colorful flowers popping up here and there, tall hills with gentle slopes, the usual. What wasn't usual were the illusions in the sky that seemed to depict mathematical equations and the still prominent Void looming above.

Blecky's ears twitched as he circled the area around Luigi, quickly returning with some excitement in the way he was flying.

"I can sense the Pure Heart!" Exclaimed the bat.

"Oh good! Is it close by?"

"Of course it's not close by you big goof, it's still far away from here! Lucky for you, my keen sense of direction will get us there in no time. First things first however, we need to find Bestovius."

"Then so be it." The plumber mumbled as he moved forward, the most logical direction given that a sign reading "Lineland Road" was placed in that very direction with a noticeable dirt road next to said sign, also heading in that direction. Needless to say, it was quite obvious which way they needed to go, so they walked, admiring the brace new world around them as they did so.

Aside from luscious variety of flowers and a single species of tree, there wasn't a lot of life in the area until our hero approached a tiny pink creature with many legs and a little round mouth. The tiny hairs on its head shuddered by the approach of the tall man in green.

"What is that?" Luigi asked, the pink thing squeaked and bounced in response to the loud man.

"That is a squiglet, its power is tantamount to the common goomba in your world. Their immediate instinct when they meet someone new is to bounce up and down and squeak in the most persistent manner, so their completely harmle-what are you doing?" Blecky watched in confusion as his partner pulled out a small package of crackers and gave one to the squiglet who happily nibbled on the salty disk.

"Completely harmless, right?" Luigi stood up and walked past the content critter as his pixl companion followed in annoyance. When Blecky himself was offer a cracker, he begrudgingly accepted the snack and perched on the plumber's head as he ate.

* * *

Soon they approached a locked door edged inside a small hill which, in turn, was surrounded by a fence made of a type of brick or stone. The fence had no defined signs of having an entrance and even covered the top of the hill, which left climbing it out of the question, not that it mattered to Luigi, he was too busy trying to figure out the meaning of this 'door to nowhere'. He eventually caved in and asked Blecky, who at this point had long since left his perch on Luigi's head, about the situation.

"Listen closely my friend, this 'door to nowhere' is actually a lesser dimensional door and our only method of cutting some huge time off of our journey, don't ask me how, but they will. Unfortunately there's no way for us to get in under normal circumstances, we'll have to find the owner of this barrier."

Luigi nodded as they shuffled pass the door and continued forward. He asked Blecky why he couldn't just teleport them to the Pure Heart like he had when they arrived in Flipside. The bat explained to him that his job as a pixl was not to teleport, rather this 'special ability' as it was called was temporarily gifted to him by Merlee to find the one of the legendary heroes. When pestered about what his actual powers were, he insisted that he could unveil illusions and analyze things of interest. Luigi found these powers to be rather pointless, claiming that anybody could do either of those things, not realizing how soon he would be eating those words.

The two of them had found a particularly tall and steep hill with a small, cream colored house on top. Based on the local points of erosion, it looked like there had been a time where a smaller hill lived next to the taller one but had long since vanished, in the place of this humble, smaller hill was a ladder. A broken, and therefore unusable, ladder.

It was at this point Luigi showed his partner what a 'real' special ability looked like and used his famous Super Jump to reach the house. Upon entering the house, he was surprised to find the building completely empty. This didn't shock Blecky in the slightest.

"I do believe this is where MY abilities come in." The bat said in a smug voice as he pressed a claw on one of the walls, revealing a hidden door. "Bleh heh heh, you sure are lucky to have me around aren'tcha? I guess you could say my illusion piercing abilities aren't as useless you initially thought?" He teased, his voice saturated in sass.

Luigi invited himself into the next room where he met a very angry old man and a terrified pixl. The hero couldn't let out a single 'hello' before the elder lunged and attacked him with his cane. This attack resulted in a chorus of screams from members of both parties for a good number of minutes before Luigi could scurry away from the brutality that was a senior citizen with a big stick. The old man, being rather persistent, continued to chase Luigi around the room for a decent amount of time while Blecky and new pixl decided to become aquatinted with one another.

Eventually, Luigi was able to reason with the old man who introduced himself as Watchitt, Old Man Watchitt to be precise. Now that he wasn't being chased, Luigi was able to notice the details of Watchitt's person, such as his deep blue tunic, the pair of yellow glasses hidden under his sombrero-like hat, the mustache-and-beard combo he was sporting, and his uncanny habit to blurt out 'WATCH IT!' between sentences.

"I suppose I should apologize for my aggressive mannerisms. WATCH IT! You see, this darn fairy fella is a friend of my cousin, who I rarely meet now in days. Apparently there's some commotion going on in our childhood home of Yold Town and he sent this pixl over so I could WATCH THEM until some legendary hero shows up or something. WATCH IT!" Old Man Watchitt explained to his visitors.

The pixl he spoke of, known as Laddie, had the appearance of being part of a ladder, with purple sides, two blue-green rungs, a visible pair of eyes between the rungs, and two pairs of semi-circular wings.

"Nice to meet'cha." Greeted the somewhat shell-shocked pixl, its wings still shivering long after the race of a thousand minutes had ceased. "If I might ask, how did you get here? The dimensional door from Yold Town is locked, the ladder outside is out of order, and the door to this room should be invisible to the naked eye of almost every creature imaginable."

"Well you see, we came here from Flipside-"

"FLIPSIDE?!" Laddie was quick to interrupt Luigi. "Did-Did Merlon send you here?"

"Only because I need to receive the power to flip between dimensions from Bestovius." Was Luigi's brief answer as he anticipated another interruption.

"About that, Bestovius gave me some of his 'flipping powers' before sending me off and told me to only give the power to a mustached man in red garments."

"Red garments? He must have been expecting a visit from my brother then."

"Your brother?!" Both of the pixls asked in surprise.

"Yeah, we're twins...kinda. He's just a bit older than me."

"Where is he?" Laddie continued to question the hero.

"I...don't know." Every other person in the room wanted to fall at the ground at this respond.

As the inquisition between Luigi and Laddie continued, it became increasingly obvious that the ladder-shaped pixl would need to follow the bat and plumber duo for them to find the Pure Heart and save the universe.

"I suppose there's no other choice, you need to find the Pure Heart, and I need to find the man in red. We have to work together for either of those things to happen, so from this point onward, I'm sticking to you guys like mentally traumatized glue." And just like that, Laddie joined Luigi's party, upgrading the dysfunction duo into a troublesome trio.

Before leaving, the group requested a key to the door outside. Watchitt was happy to oblige, provided that they never entered the vicinity ever again, a simple request really. It was agreed, and the misfit musketeers that were Luigi, Blecky, and the newly recruited Laddie continued onto their heroic endeavors.

Reaching the locked door, Laddie used their recently acquired ability to 'Flip' the team into a place known as the 'Next Dimension', otherwise known as the Next. While everything looked relatively the same, there was a feeling of extra depth to the world, like turning a statue a certain way to view it from another angle.

In the new perspective, Luigi noticed large chucks of the fence were completely nonexistent, the gaps were large enough even for Bowser to squeeze through. Laddie returned them to the Normal Dimension when they entered the inner boundaries of the fence where they could now unlock and go through the illusive 'lesser' dimensional door.

When asked about the properties Next Dimension, Laddie explained that the length, width, depth, and even existence of objects between the two dimensions varies, hence why the fence from before did not fully exist in the Next.

Out of curiosity, Luigi asked about Laddie's normal powers.

"Well, normally I have the ability to create and repair ladders. As of right now, however, my gift has been overwritten with Bestovius's; until I give the flipping ability to somebody, it's the only ability I can use, so we better hope there aren't any ladders in the near future in need of being fixed." He answered, the ladder-shaped pixl finally growing accustomed to the plumber and his odd partner, as hinted by the lack of shivering in their presence.

The obstacles ahead of them were few and usually required a brief a trip to the Next. One visit in particular had occurred near a tall hill with a spring next to it, Luigi requested a flip to see if the hill could be passed through in the Next, his explanation being that he considered springs a challenge to his jumping abilities. They flipped, Luigi was right about the hill being hollow, as expected; what wasn't expected was the hoard of hungry squiglets living inside the hollowed out hill. They ultimately used the spring to spare Luigi the grief of having to attack the harmless critters.

And then there was the squig. "It's just like a squiglet," Blecky said, "expect its purple, and it-"

"OW!"

"-shoots rocks at people." He didn't even bother hiding the grin on his face when Luigi was assaulted by rocks during his feeble attempt to feed this different-colored and semi-hostile squiglet.

Other the the occasional squig attacked, curtesy of Luigi eventually squishing the first one with his hammer, nothing else seemed to stop the hero as he eventually approached a sign indicating his eventual arrival to the mountainous region of Lineland, Mount Lineland, leading to Yold Town. With the afternoon sun shining bright, our hero headed forward in anticipation to finally meet the mysterious Bestovius in his town of residence, unaware of the dangers ahead.

* * *

 **And that's a wrap! Stay tuned because I'm planning on releasing a chapter on Thursday as well.**

 **And with that, Adios.**


	4. Chapter 1-2: Afoot in the Foothills

**"Two chapters in one week?! Psycho you slippery snail what is this tomfoolery?"**

 **Its me compensating for releasing last chapter a week late of course!**

 **As you can tell by now, I'm taking some liberties with how the world works, especially in these next few chapters.**

 **And seriously, Dimentio got hit on the face with a bouquet of flowers during the prologue and NO ONE HAS SAID ANYTHING COME ON! I had to halt writing for a bit just so I could figure out how I wanted Peach to throw her hissy fit.**

 **Regardless, on with the reviews!**

 **MagicQuill42: Yes, Luigi and Blecky are indeed a good mix. They might argue a bit in this chapter though, so heads up! And YES, IT FEELS SO GOOD TO PUT THE UNUSED PIXL INTO USE! I was hesitant to add them at first, but decided they would make a wonderful addition to the story. Writing for them is kinda hard though since I purposefully made them gender neutral, but it's a challenge I'm willing to take.**

 **AmberAngelle: I wanted to go all out in terms of swaps and gosh diddly darn did I do it, it only made since to switch the old geezers. Also Luigi feeding the squiglet was a idea off the top of my head at the time since I needed some interactions between him and Blecky, so I'm glad you enjoyed it.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I still don't own Super Paper Mario. Nintendo does. End of story.**

* * *

And so, Luigi learned of the mysteries of the Next with the help of his newest partner, Laddie. While the achievement of obtaining a new partner was incredible news, our hero did not have time to celebrate as there was still a Pure Heart in need of being found.

"Follow me!" said Blecky as his keen senses led them the looming mountains ahead, the towing barrier protecting the Pure Heart hidden somewhere on the other side.

 **Chapter 1-2**

 **Afoot in the Foothills**

For a mountain trail leading to a populated area, the Mount Lineland pathway was an incredibly difficult road to navigate, if you were a normal person that is; luckily, Luigi was anything but normal by many standards. Case and point: Luigi's Super Jump, which allowed him to leap to heights not possible for the average man, made navigating the mountainous region a breeze. Then the enemies appeared.

It began with an encounter with a goomba and a koopa troopa, a typical sight to see among members of the Koopa Kingdom, they looked perfectly normal and indistinguishable from normal members of their races, but their behavior was peculiar. The second they spotted Luigi, they tried to attack him, actions usually attributed to them being forced under Princess Peach's commands out of fear to oppose her; this simply wasn't the case however, they attacked willingly and with a great amount of determination.

Naturally, Luigi's first action was to fight back, albeit with reluctance since he always felt a tinge of guilt in harming the normal docile creatures. The goomba ran towards Luigi, bearing its teeth as it jumped towards his face. A single swing from Luigi's hammer was enough to knock the angry fungus out cold, leaving only the koopa to fight back. It tucked its body into the ruby-colored shell on its back, using its hind legs to spin the shell at a remarkable rate and launch itself at the plumber. The attack was unavoidable, but it allowed Luigi to attack from up close as he kick the turtle in the stomach, forcing it to fall helplessly on its back and pass out when the initial impact, added with being injured and upside-down, caused it to experience a concussion.

With their foes unconscious, the trio was able to examine the cause for the sudden madness: a tiny, green sprout with a single leaf fashioned like the tail of an eighth note.

"Who would've thought such a tiny plant would be the source of our 'treble'...wait." Luigi fumbled when he realized the pun he had made and vainly tried to cover the mistake before receiving an expected glare of disapproval. Surprisingly, the look he got from Blecky wasn't one of distaste, but rather one of shock; he swore he could see a visible smile on the bats transparent face the second they made eye contact.

"I did not realize you had a 'forte' in the art of word-play." Jested the bat. What followed suit was back-to-back puns between the two parties as they moved their former foes to a safe place away from the scorching elements of the sun and proceeded upwards on the mountain trail. Laddie lagged behind them to avoid the annoyances in front of them and moved closer when the material their companions had began to run flat. At the very least, Laddie was glad the bickering duo had found common ground.

* * *

"Those are spiny tromps."

"OW!"

"You can't fight them."

"Thanks for telling me ahead of time Fang Face!"

'So much for common ground.' Thought Laddie.

The team had reached a part of the trail that was a long slope...infested with spiny tromps. The circular, spine covered rocks had a knack for conglomerating on the slopes, hence why the mountains were 'difficult' to navigate everywhere else except for the slope straight to town.

"All I'm saying is that maybe you should let me finish my analysis before you approach things all willy-nilly."

"I was trying to knock it out of your general direction you bat brain! It would have steam-rolled you into oblivion if I didn't interfere!"

"You were the one that wanted information."

"You couldn't have flow out of the way?!"

This was getting tiresome.

Laddie hovered between the other party members on the hill they argued upon, droning out the slander that was beginning to erupt and flipped them all into the Next, where the rolling foes were seemingly nonexistent, thus allowing the group to continue onward.

Another plus was that the fighting had stopped when they flipped. The hill they originally stood on was also missing in the Next, causing Luigi to plummet to the ground from his spot.

They reached the top without anymore hassle, only to be halted by an obvious gap between them and the town.

"Looks like Green pulled the bridge up...stay here for a second." Laddie didn't give either person time to respond as they flew to a distant house where the guard of the drawbridge apparently lived, a rather unorthodox action since the group could probably climb up the lifted bridge and leap to the other side, but the ladder shaped pixl needed some time away from the others, and they needed time apologize, so it seemed like a good way to kill two birds with one stone.

With nothing to do, Luigi and Blecky sat down and decided to engage in small talk, a nice change of pace compared to the yelling and word-play of before.

"I'm sorry about earlier..." Luigi was the first to admit. "I've been worried about my friends and brother, and the sudden task of rescuing the entire universe is a lot to chew as well."

"..."

"I guess I'm just incredibly reckless when it comes to having too much on my plate to handle at once. You know what I mean?"

"Not really," Blecky replied. "But I'm assuming it must be very overstimulating...I'm...also sorry. I should have realized that organic beings get stressed under different circumstances than pixls, I'm just so used to people that already know me and immediately listen to me. I should have been thinking about your problems alongside my own."

"It's ok...I forgive you." Luigi assured the bat. The mention of 'organic beings' bugged Luigi a bit though, were pixls not organic? He decided he'd ask later.

Laddie finally began their trip back to the duo, it had taken longer that usual due to Green somehow ending up in the Next and needed some time to calm down. When they arrived, the drawbridge had made its way down, over the seemingly bottomless ravine below.

Laddie saw a tall figure in green robes and an almost impressive mustache wave to them with a spear in his hand, the trio waved back or attempted to wave back as they cross the wooden bridge into Yold Town.

* * *

Yold Town didn't have much going for it, it was a small town on a isolated mountain, neighboring a ridiculously large desert that harbored hidden ruins which, in turn, were guarded by a ferocious guardian that protected a sacred treasure at the very end of said ruins. Needless to say, the town was very lackluster compared to what was ahead of it, so the prospect of anyone passing by was far from unheard of.

The trio were quick to notice a sense of unease among the townsfolk, they were nervous and glare at one another with untrusting eyes, the only exception was a young boy hopping around town in search for a playmate. The boy approached the visitors with beam of joy on his face; Laddie noticed the child's arrival and seemed to smile as well when he appeared.

"Laddie Laddie! You came back! I knew you would!"

"It's good to see you're well Bozzo." Laddie flew to the boy and gently pat him with one of their wings. "My friends, please meet Bozzo, my usual partner." They introduced him to Luigi and Blecky who couldn't help but gush at the child's playful nature. The number of eyes staring at the boy were unnerving to say the least.

"Why's everybody acting so strange?" Asked Luigi, wondering if the group had done something to wrong everybody.

"You mean you haven't heard?" A feminine voice answered. The voice's owner, a young woman who had been near the town store, moseyed over to the group, gentle pushing the child aside. "Word has it that someone from town tried to end the Mayor's game earlier today, not long after he sent his 'that' pixl", she pointed at Laddie, "over to his cousin's house in Lineland Road. Apparently he sensed this attacked ahead of time and needed to keep his special flip-magic away from his attacker. He says the assailant was someone from the town itself, so we've all been on edge trying to figure out who it is."

A failed assassination attempt? Seemed rather fishy to Luigi.

"The Mayer, I'm assuming his name Bestovius?" The hero inquired.

"Yes sir. Why do you ask?"

"I came here to speak with him. Would that be possible?"

"I don't-"

"Of coarse you can talk to Grandpa! I can take you to him!" Bozzo interjected and grabbed Luigi's hand to walk him over to the end of town. "Bye bye Miss Babs!" He said as they left.

On the way there, Bozzo talked about how much he missed his 'best friend Laddie' and how excited he was to see the beast that lived in the Yold Ruins make his annual visit to the town and bring snow to the children. This visit, known as "The Day of Ice", was a tradition that had been around since the Pure Heart was first placed in the ruins and that the beast, according to Laddie, was a creature of the heavens that insisted on remaining in the Linelands as a mortal being to bring joy to the children of the dessert. Luigi found this tradition to be incredibly heartwarming to say the least, and filled him certainty that, with this information in mind, his journey for the Pure Heart would be a bit easier.

* * *

Bestovius was an odd fellow to say the least, but that was to be expected from someone referred to as a 'Flip Wizard'. He was a red-cloaked man on a magic cloud, his eyes obscured by a pair of foggy glasses underneath a blue hat. The orb-shaped mouth characteristic to members of the Shaman race was emerald green and perfectly aligned underneath a thick mustache.

Such a man would be expected to be rather slow in both mind and body, but his quick movements and way of speaking begged to differ; he greeted the heroes with a swift and pompous "Hello" and a brash "What do you want?". Luigi, not being one to be startled off by harsh words, approached the elderly mayor and made his claim to find the assassin. The bewilderment in Bestovius' eyes was enough to tell Luigi that he would accept his offer.

He led them to a empty house in the middle of town, their place of stay for the night. Bestovius only spoke about the murder on the trip there, the rest of the walk was silent aside from Bozzo's occasional chime-in about how cool the town was, to which Bestovius himself would scorn for the child to quiet down. Bozzo's expressed confusion seemed to indicate that this behavior was abnormal for the mayor; Luigi wanted to shrug it off as Bestovius' nerves making him jumpy, but the wizard had proven to have a calm demeanor over everything else, it was as if he didn't recognize the boy as his own grandson.

Nonetheless, there was still an assassin loose in town, and such information made it difficult for one to sleep when nightfall arrived. Luckily, Blecky offered to keep watch for the night, just in case the assassin appeared; unluckily, the assassin did appear, and did everything in their power to put Blecky and Laddie to sleep before throwing the trio into a secret room underneath the house they were sleeping in. A heavily guarded room. Protected by thwomps.

Granted, the assassin made the poor decision of trying to trap our main character who, regardless of the obstacles ahead of him, would stop at nothing to accomplish his end goals. Yes, it would take a while for everyone to wake up, but what mattered most was that they would wake up at all.

* * *

Upon waking, the first things Luigi noticed was that it was very dark and that his companions were far from conscious. The next thing he noticed was the heavy breathing of Bestovius next to him and a gross gurgling sound on the opposite side of the room. The thing he noticed immediately afterward was the lack of his trusty hammer being in his possession.

The sounds of gurgling death rammed towards Luigi's direction, its attention drawn to his movement. He stood up, surprised to find himself unharmed, and ran to one of the side walls, hugging it as he slide to the opposite side of the room to draw attention to himself instead of his friends.

He felt a switch, and instinctively yanked it upward. Something large dropped from the ceiling and clunked onto its side, its single content, whatever it was, rolled out. Luigi's pursuer could be heard slurping up the spilled treasure. A hissing noise commenced and the room lit up from the place of the hunter, a simultaneously gelatinous and heavily-armored creature with millions of tiny legs akin to soggy french fries, grey-purple body plates, and a single, giant, blue-lipped mouth, puckered up as if to prevent its meal from escaping.

Stacking out of the mouth was a light blue fuse, the only light source in the room. The burning fuse entered the mouth briefly before the monstrosity combusted, miraculously not leaving any insides behind, making it easier for the author to keep this story at a K+ rating; what was left behind instead was a key, Luigi's hammer, and a bomb-shaped object.

The blue colored bomb sprung to life with beady light blue eyes and a pair of semi-circular wings of the same color. He moved with the rhythm of a ticking clock, jittery but rapid.

"BADA-BOOM! Talk about a rude awakening!" Yes, he's got a Jersey accent now, don't question it. "I ain't one to appreciate being interrupted from a nap, but I've been trying BLAM myself out of that box for the past 1,500 years or something, I was going crazy in there. Actually scratch that, I was crazy to begin with." He stuck out his fuse and held it out like a hand, "Name's Boomer, BADA BING. I'm assuming your one of them Legendary Heroes I gotta team up with, right?"

"Yeah. Um." The hero hesitantly shook the...hand...fuse, "I'm Luigi."

"Luigi, eh? Nice name." He spun around the plumber, the movement somehow created a irritating ringing inside Luigi's head that stopped as soon as Boomer ceased his spinning. "You da boss now, so here's the deal: I put up my special psychic link exclusive to you and the other heroes, you use it to help fuel my pyromaniac-like tendencies, and BADA BING, BADA BOOM, we blast our foes into dust." Luigi nodded and plucked the two remaining objects off the ground.

The key fit perfectly inside the room's only exit, and quickly unlocked; the spiked rectangles known as thwomps that slammed outside were impossible to avoid without being squished, so Luigi decided to wake his friends so he could avoid the beasts in The Next, but Bestovius had been far ahead of him. The magician, carrying Luigi's other partners, took them to The Next with much more ease than Laddie ever could and led them to the other side of the room where a ladder led to the house above.

The light outside indicated for it to be midday, the commotion outside indicated that everyone was in a panic at the disappearance of the mayor, and the confused mumbling of Bestovius seemed to indicate that he had no memory of the previous day, aside from sending Laddie to Watchitt.

"That creature...I think it took me...when I had left my guard down." Bestovius muttered, something about his voice seemed different, more genuine than before. "Are Bozzo and Laddie doing well?"

"Yes sir, are you alright?" Luigi responded, concerned for the old man's well being.

"That creature was quite aggressive, but I think I will be fine. I'm more concerned about your quest, dear Hero of Light. I shall tell Red to lower the bridge to the desert, you can stay here until you are ready to leave."

Luigi's team stayed for another night at the town, this time without the fear of some monster assassin looming above their heads; they met the shopkeeper, a look-alike cousin of the one in Flipside, and became more aquatinted with the members of the small town. Bozzo seemed quite relieved that his grandfather was acting like his normal self again and asked Luigi to say 'Hi' to the ice beast when he found the Yold Ruins.

The following morning, Team Luigi bid farewell to Yold Town, a red clothed figure waving goodbye from his distant home, and headed towards the Yold Desert. Following behind Luigi was no longer two but three pixls, loyal to the end and ready to face the scorching heat and blistering sand alongside their human leader.

* * *

 **Thats a wrap! Did you catch the hints to our world boss? Let's just say his appearance will be CHILLING...I'm not sorry for that pun.**

 **Expect the next chapter to be on a Wednesday like normal.**

 **And with that, Adios!**


	5. Chapter 1-3: The Sands of Yold

**Blecky-Bleh heh heh! Hey guys it's me, Blecky! I'm taking Psycho's place today so she can do homework. Psycho wanted me to tell you all that this** **chapter is mostly exposition, but it has a mini-boss fight to make up for it, so that's good. REVIEW TIME!**

 **MagicQuill42: We're all very glad that you love each character! (I'm especially glad, bleh heh heh.)**

 **DISCLAIMER: TheUltimatePsychoFanGirl don't own Super Paper Mario. Blah blah blah STORY GO!**

* * *

A quick and inelegant sneeze emerged from Luigi as the warm winds of the Yold Desert blew sand into his face. Luigi, Blecky, and the other pixls continued their search for the Pure Heart with the expansive desert ahead.

 **Chapter 1-3**

 **The Sands of Yold**

Believing they had removed the terror of Yold Town had filled Team Luigi with a sense of accomplishment and the determination to push forward towards their goal, despite the intensity of the sun above. The journey, of coarse, would be a long one since the Yold Desert was, well, a desert; to fix this problem, Luigi decided that everyone should tell stories and get to know each other.

Blecky, to start off, was Merlee's loyal helper; he was created by Merlee and held a incredibly strong psychic link with her, he went around Flipside to send messages between Merlee and the townsfolk while she studied the Light Prognosticus. He did other miscellaneous things like take care of the cat he found, whom he dubbed 'Voidslayer', but that was about it.

Next was Laddie, who considered themself to be a curiosity of life, having been created alongside Boomer and several other pixls, but as a failed prototype. Their activation after continuous failures was unexplainable, especially since they first awoke after the activation of the other pixls and should not have been able to live. They were considered a miracle, but they suffered from an 'obsessive desire to be free', that even they couldn't comprehend.

Following Laddie was Boomer, who plainly stated himself as a 'straight up pyromaniac'. Despite his tendency to destroy everything in sight, he had a soft spot for his friends.

Finally, Luigi introduced himself with the typical self-claims about being a normal person that wants to make life better for others. Plain and simple.

While Blecky's stories of his shenanigans were humorous, Laddie's stories of his psychic link with Bestovius and Bozzo were heartwarming and Boomer's stories of carnage were therapy-worthy, everyone agreed that Luigi's tales of heroism were the most interesting and exhilarating. His accomplishments against Peaches tyranny and bravery against incomprehensible creatures was admirable to say the least; the sharing of personal events brought the normally dysfunctional team

Aside from several aggressive goombas and the ever-terrible squig, the only new enemy the team had to worry about was the common bald cleft, a sentient rock with feet and a tough defensive stat. They weren't very bright and could easily be tricked into falling into quicksand or into one of Boomer's explosions.

After their tenth encounter with a bald cleft, Luigi decided to ask Blecky about the creature in Yold Town; apparently it was called a Shlurp, but it was, curiously enough, not native to the Linelands, causing the group to wonder how such a creature had managed to travel dimensions.

Before they could try to find an explaination for such phenomena, however, Bestovius appeared behind them, saying he wanted to make sure the group made their way to the Yold Ruins in safety; he spoke like he did when they first met, with lots of pompous, and Laddie seemed to shift uncomfortably in his presence, like something wasn't right. Help was help however, so they let him follow.

This would immediately prove to be a bad idea as every action Bestovius made seemed to slow down the group's progress and bring attention to hoards of enemies. Not only that, but Laddie continued to complain about their psychic link with Bestovius being nonexistent, which only happened if a pixl was too far away from a master or if said master is deceased. Bestovius was alive and obviously nearby, so the lack of a connection was bizarre.

There had even been a scenario where there was a large, unavoidable pit of quicksand that could only, by process of elimination, be passed through within the Next. Bestovius refused to lend his power to lead them across, instead insisting that Laddie do it so they could get use to the Flip technique, something that the mentioned pixl claimed as uncharacteristic for the wizard.

Nonetheless, they trudged onward.

* * *

Bestovius commanded the group to stop. They obliged, hoping that he would make himself useful as the team approached the end of their wits.

"What could possibly be your reason for us to stop here of all places?! There's nothing here but sand and palm trees!" Blecky finally spoke up.

"It's important that you stop here." The wizard said. His voice sounding out of place.

"There is a giant, world consuming hole in the sky Bestovius! If you insist on us stopping here, then please, for our sakes, enlighten us on what good this will do."

"This will do much good little bat." He looked at them emptily.

Bestovius then disappeared in a cloud of purple smoke, and in his place was Mimi, dressed in robe that looked appropriate for desert travel. The glare she gave the group was cold enough to make the dunes themselves become ice.

"Mimimimi. You were all quite foolish to fall for my trap. Granted, it's hard to assume the recent behavior of someone as off-putting when you barely know them."

"Who in the name of the makers are you?!" Laddie blurted out.

"Looks like a troublemaker to me." Luigi replied, his hammer tightly clenched in his hand.

"You'd be very much correct hero. I am Mimi, professional shapeshifter and one of Mistress Tempo's four highest ranked followers. I've been given a rather simple job today, so I'd appreciate it if you'd submit before it's too late and let me capture you. It would save us both the time and energy of having to fight." Mimi spoke with utmost seriousness and kept all eye contact on her target. Every word she spoke was deprived of joy or youth.

"Over our dead bodies!" Called out Boomer, who was shaking in anticipation for a battle to stir as he sensed his boss's preparation to attack. Luigi silently lifted his hammer and marched a few steps forward, his eyes filled with a courageous fire.

"So be it then. Come forward prophetic hero, and face my true form!" Mimi boasted before violently snapping her neck.

The woman's head then spun over her shoulders like and owl, but rapidly with spasmodic movements from the upper body and the gruesome organic sounds of bones cracking. The head bent backwards mid-spin, pausing with the face in the direction of its provokers; the eyes were now empty pits, the mouth was in a crooked grin, and the ponytail swung like a dead snake on a branch instead of swaying in the wind like hair normally would.

The body went limp as the sides of the head burst from a protrusion of spindly arachnid limbs, a pair from the front had green claw-like extensions while the ponytail curved upward like the tail of a scorpion, the very tip of it tinted with a color akin to black nightshade berries.

The horrifying scorpion creature made a gruesome sounding cackle before charging towards the group, who all immediately dodged out of the way either in fear or by instinct. When her initial attacked failed, she used her claws to dig into the sand, concealing her and making it more difficult to be harmed.

The tail sprung out behind Luigi and swung itself at him, stinger first. The impact left the burning feeling of poison coursing through his veins before the tail sunk back in the sand. The plumber tried in vain to attack but would end up missing or getting hit before he could retaliate; he eventually had to use an item he had gotten at the store in Yold Town, it healed him of the damage he took and cured him of his poisoned status, bringing him back to his peak.

All they had to do now was actually land a hit on the hiding shapeshifter. Laddie took the group to the Next, and was surprised to see their foe there as well. Fortunately, the Next provided them with a method to attack Mimi in the form of ripples in the sand.

Boomer dropped himself when the ripples appeared in front of Luigi, the resulting explosion forced Mimi to leave her hiding place and attack on land, where her lack of eyes and reliance on the movement in the ground made her eyesight significantly lacking. She attempted to use the vibrations on the surface and shot a barrage of poison-covered onyxes from her tail towards the direction of most movement.

The precious stones narrowly missed the intended target who responded with a throwing a certain bomb-shaped pixl into the arachnid's face. The blow was so powerful it detached one of its recipient's legs, leaving her with only seven legs and two claws. This gave Luigi an idea as Mimi dug back underground from the pain.

Instead of going to the next, Luigi searched for even the slightest movements in the sand, when the movements were right underneath him, the tail would appear to sting him, where he would dodge the stinger. He'd place Boomer when Mimi began to get too close, ensuring her to rise out of the grainy earth and once again shoot rocks at him. Then he'd either use Boomer or his hammer to knock another leg off of the enemy until only the claws remains.

Without legs to move, Mimi used her tail to shoot onyxes and then her claws to attack short range. A well placed explosion when the claws began to snap easily removed the last of her limbs as she flailed pitifully in the sand.

The purple clouds engulfed the grotesque head as Mimi returned to her other form, noticeably leaning to one side and clutching one of her arms in pain.

"I suppose I have been beat then. No matter, we will retaliate with more power in due time." She said, the words straining to leave her mouth.

"We'll fight as many of you freaks as we need too!" Blecky retorted, "We aren't scared! We'll fight the Void itself if we have too!"

"I'd like to see you try, little bat. It would give us a good laugh at least. I'll take my leave now." And just like that, she teleported out of the scorching desert.

Blecky was visibly steaming in anger at the shapeshifter's snarky attitude towards him. He glared at the Void before finally speaking again.

"Luigi, you know what this means right?"

"We're being hunted down by the Mistress?"

"No. We have to fight the Void."

"DO WHAT?!"

"SHE INSULTED MY SIZE LUIGI THIS MEANS WAR!"

It was at this point forward that Blecky became determined to physically fight the Void with his own two claws and would not hesitate to drag everyone he know along for the ride, all because someone had referred to him as small.

Void fighting shenanigans aside, Luigi had a Pure Heart to find, and moved further into the desert as his riled up bat companion and other two pixls followed suit.

* * *

With the battlefield far behind them, the group entered a strong sandstorm. They halted at a unusually tall palm tree with crimson leaves when it became obvious that the wind was becoming too intense. Climbing the tree was utterly useless, the wind was just as powerful at the top of the tree, making the storm just as unnavigable.

They continued forward in search for the ruins, but were halted by a large creature that hid in the storm. Without a way to see, the group fell back and looked elsewhere, finding a stone statue soon after.

"'Pluck from the tree of red palms a stalk of its crimson growths. It's opaqueness and the storm are but an illusion.'" Luigi carefully read aloud the inscriptions on the statue's worn top half. The bottom half was less buffered by the wind and read, "'The tail of a Jawbust is a dousing rod and a key to never-ending love.'"

Although the information given by both carvings was somewhat confusing, Luigi kept this information in mind when he trekked back to the red palm tree.

Utilizing his expert climbing skills, he carefully scaled the Arecaceae until he was able to reach one of its bright leaves.

The leaves were indeed less opaque then they appeared when Luigi held the one he grasped up to his eyes. It was like looking through a pair of literal rose-tinted glasses, except the only good thing that could be seen was a lack of any sandstorm; the storm was completely invisible, allowing him to navigate through it with ease.

They met the large enemy from before, a purple dragon creature. Blecky was able to confirm it as a jawbust, a though skinned monster whose only weakness was its bright glowing bulb on its tail. Naturally, Luigi did what he was best at and slammed his hammer onto the bulb, forcing it to writhe in agony. The ferocious jawbust couldn't withstand the pain and ripped it's tail off its body to stop its suffering.

Boomer assured our hero that it was completely normal for one to feel guilty about leaving a jawbust to its ultimate demise, but said plumber was too busy squeamishly picking up the discarded tail to notice and continued to feel guilty about it regardless.

On the upside, the beast was now gone, allowing them to go in the direction it was blocking. Lo and behold was the Yold Ruins just ahead, constructed out an ancient kind of brick. The sealed entrance was the maw of a gargantuan stone dragon keeping watch of the marine blue platform in front of it.

Luigi stood onto the platform, as if by instinct, and pulled out the jawbust's tail. The bulb fit perfectly into a circular indention in the platform's center. When nothing happened, Luigi removed the bulb, activating a mechanism in the entranceway that allowed the dragon's maw to open wide. A chilly breeze escaped its rocky throat.

Glancing at his awed partners, Luigi stuffed the tail and the red palm leaf into a reserved location in his bag for important items and took a bold step into the prophetic ruins.

* * *

 **Blecky- Stay tuned for next week when we actually go INTO the Yold Ruins! Oooooh! Bleh heh heh, joking** **aside, Psycho appreciates every single person that reads this story.**

 **So without further ado, Adios!**


	6. Chapter 1-4: Monster of the Ruins

**I know I said updates were gonna be Wednesdays for now on but I changed my mind at the last minute, it's on Tuesdays now.**

 **Blah Blah Blah we're at the ruins now, LETS GET PUMPED! Also we didn't get any reviews today :/...anywho.**

 **DISCLAIMER: Nintendo owns Super Paper Mario, not me. Disclaimer over.**

* * *

In spite of the unforgiving dunes of the Yold Desert, Luigi and Co. had found the strength to bypass the shifting sands and had found the Yold Ruins. They ventured inside. "These ruins are awfully chilly, this must be the home of the Ice Beast!" said Blecky as they delved deep into the ancient structure.

 **Chapter 1-4**

 **Monster of the Ruins**

The torchlit Yold Ruins seemed devoid of any heat, the walls and floor were icy cold and slippery, and the blue fire that allowed the group to see anything seemed to drain the warmth of everything around them. The blue discarded shells of buzzy beetles lied scattered across the ground, the rest of the small foes having given up their life force to the torches.

The sound of bones clattering was heard ahead, getting closer and closer. Our heroes approached the noise, believing it to be the ruckus of another mindless enemy. In actuality, the sound was from a more self aware group of foes who were in charge of skewering any foreign entities that entered the the Yold Ruins in search of its secrets.

The heroes, armed for attack, found themselves face-to-face with a pair of skeletons with spears in their hands. One of them, purple colored and wearing a spite on its head, commanded the other, a blue colored skeleton, to attack the group in an ancient tongue. The lesser of the undead charged with the likeness of a jouster, prompting Luigi to dodge out of the way and make way to the leader. Said leader was much smarter than it's blue counterpart and allowed the hero to make his way towards it before swinging its spear at him at the last minute; miraculously, the attack only made a scratch, witch baffled both Luigi and his foes.

The purple skeleton, after some thought, indicated shock at a realization of some sort and promptly bowed to the hero. Its partner followed suit.

"Hero," it spoke "my apologies for not immediately recognizing your sacred light."

The abrupt change into hospitality was a surprise to Luigi, who usually expected the oversaturated kindness first, followed by a sour betrayal. He decided to go with the turn of events with a pinch of salt.

"Who-"

"WHAT THE HECK IT WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?!" Blecky interrupted, still bitter about the fight with Mimi and anticipating to sink his teeth into battle instead of being a flying encyclopedia.

"We are the guardsmen of the Yold Ruins, the resting place of the Lineland Pure Heart. As protectors of such a relic, we have been entrusted powers that decimate all beings unworthy of entering these ruins; you are protected by the great creators and are therefore immune to our powers." The blue skeleton uttered, unfazed by the bat's attitude and not particularly interested in answering his question.

"English please?" Blecky asked in annoyance.

"We have been expecting you."

"Thank you."

The guards, whom Blecky declared to be skellobits, took it upon themselves to escort the group to the Pure Heart's location, both out of common curtesy and as an apology for attempting to turn the main character into Swiss cheese.

The skellobit guards navigated the twisting and interlocking tunnels with ease, skewering pesty buzzy beetles into dust-filled shells and shoving aside the slightly smaller but slightly more annoying cousins of the spiny tromp, the spiky tromp, into less job-interfering locations. All while other skellobits and their tiny wormlike counterparts, the skellobaits, passed by as if they had already known of the hero's arrival just minutes before.

According to their guides, the skellobits and their leader were once dwellers of the afterlife, but were allowed chances at redemption among the living. By accepting their tasks of protecting the Pure Heart, they forfeited the immortality they would normally have in the living world by filling their empty bodies with something akin to a mortal soul. This information ceased to bother them over time since the Yold Ruins were incredibly reclusive and the species are a whole had lost interest in causing trouble. Even their leader, who had been incredibly viscous, found he had more interest in preoccupying the Yold Town children with snow each year he awoke instead of trying to claim the Pure Heart he once desired to obtain for himself. Over the years, the species as a whole had become docile towards non-aggressive entities and had insisted on staying in the ruins after all was said and done, so they were given permission to do as such.

The frozen atmosphere seemed to become more mild to Luigi as the skellobits led them through the maze of brick and sand. Even as they got closer to the end and both groups ran out of conversational material, he felt warmly welcomed by the undead guardians.

* * *

The party approached the exit to the ruins, an open entryway into a Parthenon-like structure. Luigi felt an ominous wind in the premises and decided to jump underneath another 'save block' for good measure; he hadn't realized until that moment, but he had done the same thing before fighting Mimi. Such a habit was common for him when his subconscious suspected danger ahead of him. Perhaps Mimi was planning a second round to their previous fight.

He shook off the strange looks from his peers and followed the guards into the outside world. The structure was even colder than the ruins they had come from, so much in fact that there were icicles forming on the ceiling. Not a grain of the sand outside entered the pillared building as a cold breeze emerged from the center of the room. The source of this breeze was the chilling aura of a giant blue-boned beast in a deep slumber.

He stood as still as a ice sculpture. The bottom half was a golden canon-like device with a pair of proportionally large wheels and a thin black tail that curved upwards; the upper half was a typical skeleton chest and spine, but had the toothy head of a common dragon resting on its shoulders. The arms were thin like the tail, but gave the impression that they could break anything they grasped; likewise the six angelic wings on his back, although seeming small and frail, had a feeling of deeply hidden potential in the form of incredible flight capabilities.

The towering beast's crimson eyes eyes snapped awake to stare down at the plumber and his companions. He scanned the hero from head to toe and into his very soul, silently judging every flaw and imperfection before speaking as a living embodiment of frostbite.

"Hero, bathed in the light of thy great creators," he boomed. "your journey hast already been a treacherous one, and yet you hath only collected the first Pure Heart. I am Bonechill, the guardian of the second Pure Heart. My job is eliminate intruders and thieves, which thou are neither. As such I giveth thee permission to pass into the room behind me."

Before Luigi could thank the great beast for his kindness, a snicker echoed through the chamber.

"My my my, if it isn't the Man in Green. It's so nice to see you again." The feminine voice teased like a nagging secretary. Its source dropped from the ceiling between Luigi and Bonechill. "Now marks the spectacular arrival of Nastasia, the Ringleader of Darkness!"

"Who? Wait, have we met somewhere before?" Blecky questioned, eyeing the entertainer with suspicion.

"In a way, yes. But we can dwell on such information later. Now is the present, and as it stands this encounter is rather boring. Don't worry though, sweet little Nassy knows how to spice things up a bit for the audience!" She adjusted her glasses when she finished talking, a ring of red sparks circled Bonechill, who was sorely confused the entire time, immediately afterward.

The great beast twitched and rattled until the sparks dissipated, he closed his eyes and breathed heavily.

"My work here is done for now. So long Green Thunder!" Nastasia taunted before teleporting away from the chamber.

Bonechill's eyes opened slowly, his breath was deep and monstrous.

"Who dares approach me?" He thundered, "A puny mortal, a pathetic prophetic hero is what dares to witness me? Hero, you have made a poor decision to challenge the mighty fallen angel Bonechill and as such will be destroyed by my hand! The Pure Heart you seek shall be mine!"

He let out a mighty roar as hoards of skellobits surrounded him, entranced by the same spell that was driving him mad.

"Blecky! What's wrong with him?" Luigi called out, hammering away at the skeletal foes.

"He's under that madwoman's control! You'll have to defeat him!" The bat responded as he avoided a swarm of winged skellobits.

The amount of skeletons was copious to say the least. Every time one was defeated, a number more of them took its place like the head of a hydra. Luigi was slowly ruining out of strength, items, and patience with each hit he was forced to take. The skellobits weren't the only problem as Bonechill blew a gust of icy breath every minute or so. The icicles on the ceiling would grow in size until they were too heavy and would explode into a flurry of shards onto the floor. Large chunks of ice blasted from Bonechill's canon between breaths, increasing the amount of carnage.

The struggle became even greater for Luigi when his hammer was knocked out of his hands by an enemy, forcing him to grab a discarded spear from a previous foe. The pointed end of the weapon jabbed into the ribcage and through something partially solid, the skeleton disappeared into dust, leaving its own spear behind.

Mortified, Luigi pulled back the stick in his hands. The powers of its original handler still coursed through the weapon's material. Perhaps he could use this to his advantage.

Luigi grabbed the second spear and charged into the masses with the pointed ends of both weapons facing forward. The hoards dropped like flies from the mere touch of the weapons' heads, making a clear path to Bonechill himself.

Bonechill, however, was much tougher than his minions; his skeleton and canon were guarded by a thick layer of scales that deflected the attacks of the spear. The only part that seemed vulnerable was the head, so he threw the long stick with all his might towards that direction. The effect was immediate as the sharp spearhead imbedded itself into one of Bonechills eye sockets, the impact shook off a layer of scales.

Using this strategy to his advantage, Luigi called over the pixls to help him as he threw his second spear, which busted part of the jawbone. Blecky distracted the skellobits with his skilled flying capabilities while Laddie entered the Next to collect spears without being attacked. Luigi tossed Boomer into the golden canon during the chaos, destroying the inner mechanisms and forcing Bonechill to only use his ice breath.

With a bundle of spears and Luigi's hammer in tow, Laddie returned to the normal dimension to drop of their delivery. This prompted Luigi to engage in tossing spears at the beasts head until only frail bones remained. A gentle glow rested inside the place where Bonechill's heart would be, which Luigi instinctually aimed at with the last of his spears.

The spear and the light blasted apart, causing Bonechill to topple over and all of his minions to vanish. He let out a rumbling noise akin to shivering as he stared daggers into Luigi's soul.

"Bozzo had a message for you..." Luigi chocked up with guilt as he spoke. "He said 'Hi.'"

A glint of recognition briefly appeared in Bonechill's eyes before they went completely blank, like they were turned off by a light switch. The hot desert wind invaded the room, now that the icy aura from before was expelled, and carried away the fragile bones of the ice beast, now lost to the sands of time.

Luigi and company slowly made their way to the Pure Heart's holding room with their own hearts heavier than the brick they walked upon. The room was similar to most of the hallways that littered the ruins except the walls were beautifully decorated in unspeakable patterns, the guards that once occupied the stone chamber having meticulously cleaned every nook and cranny for the arrival of the hero.

A transparent figure sat at the opposite end of the room, covered by a smooth green cloak over a yellow toga-like article of clothing. The only other distinguishing thing about the figure was their green star-gem mouth, long locks of reddish-blondish hair, and distinctly masculine physique. He rose from the floor, soon hovering over it, and approached the group with a sunset orange Pure Heart in his arms.

"Welcome, hero. I am Merloo, a 1,500 year old soul that has long anticipated your arrival. Your presence indicates that all worlds are in the process of collapsing, correct?"

"Yes sir." Luigi and the others answered in unison.

"I see. Listen well hero, for I have important information that must be disclosed."

Luigi nodded, waiting to absorb all vital information like a sponge.

"A long time ago, my people built a great and prosperous civilization filled with power beings. But despite such power, we were completely powerless against one thing and one thing only: The Dark Prognosticus.

"The creator of this terrible book is unknown. What was known, however, was that it foretold future events thousands of years ahead of its time and that the very last page described a chaotic power that would devour all worlds.

"To stop such a catastrophe from happening, we created an object fueled by the essences of love itself to counteract the chaos, the Purity Heart. To protect it from evil hands, we divided the Purity Heart into eight Pure Hearts and sent them to different dimensions where they could be found by the hero of prophesy."

"Is that all you have for us sir?" Luigi asked, just in case there was some hints or tidbits that would help in the long run.

"Well I have this exhilarating tale from my youth you might be interested in." He replied.

"Uh-maybe some other time." Luigi dejected, still feeling the weight of an empty victory.

"...He would have preferred it like this." Merloo assured Luigi, who felt the heavy burden lighten just a bit with that response.

"Go forth hero, we are depending on you." With that, Merloo released the Pure Heart to carry itself into Luigi's possession.

Before finally disappearing, Merloo entrusted the fate of all worlds with Luigi, and proceeded to set himself at rest after waiting 1,500 years to deliver his message. Although Luigi found himself in slightly greater spirits by having the seconds Pure Heart in hand, he knew there was a long journey ahead to find the remaining six.

"We'd best return to Flipside." Blecky exclaimed as the group made their way towards the red-outlined door that appeared in front of them, leading them back to the faithful little town between worlds.

* * *

 **Our heroes now have a second Pure Heart, YEEHAW!**

 **Only 26(ish) main chapters and at least 7 more interludes to go, at this rate I'll have this done before 2020!**

 **I kid, I kid. Regardless, it will be a while before a new chapter since I actually have to write them first. I'm also working on Reboot while I do this as well, so that'll be a hold back. Just expect an update between tomorrow and the end of the universe and we should be fine.**

 **Also, feel free to correct me on any mistakes or segments that don't make sense, especially since I sometimes overlook errors even after proofreading.**

 **With that, Adios!**


	7. Interlude 1

**Me-Welcome back everyone! Glad you could make it!**

 **Dimentio-You're a month behind schedule...**

 **Me-At least I'm uploading now.**

 **Dimentio-But you haven't even finished writing Chapter 2-2.**

 **Me-Well...**

 **Dimentio-You also haven't started on 2-3 or 2-4 either.**

 **Me-...I got lazy...anyway, how about those reviews?**

 **Space Dimentio (who reviewed Prologue): Yeah, there's actually a pretty thorough explaination as to why the prophecy's unchanged. As for Dimmy touching the Chaos Heart, considering who the true "Dark One" of the prophecy is, I think you can guess what happened.**

 **DISCLAIMER: I don't own Super Paper Mario. Nintendo does. There.**

* * *

Mimi stood before Mistress Tempo and Dimentio with the bitter taste of defeat, and sand, plaguing her mouth. The Mistress was quite surprised that one of her followers had returned not just empty-handed, but badly bruised and beaten as well. Mimi was a renowned assassin before her recruitment by Tempo alongside another one of her current team members, so the fact she was so easily felled was shocking to say the least.

"So based upon what you've told us, it didn't go well?" Dimentio asked.

"Yes, please forgive me for my failure, Mistress."

"Fear not Mimi, all is forgiven in the eyes of the chosen prophet." Tempo consoled to Mimi. "Even if you didn't retrieve him, your encounter with the Hero is enough to prove that his strength is formidable. I suppose it is to be expected, of course. Dimentio," she turned to the assistant. "I request that you consult the prophesy to determine the next location of our hero. I'd suggest an attempt to out-brawn him with Mimi's old friend."

"I will get on that immediately my Mistress." Dimentio bowed in acknowledgment of Tempo's plan.

"Excellent, I shall be in my bed chamber, catching up on my reading. Let me know when the hero is in our grasp." With that, Mistress Tempo snatched the Dark Prognosticus from its mid-air perch and teleported away.

Dimentio sighed, "Are you doing alright Mimikins?"

"My head is still ringing from the number of bombs I was hit with, but I'll live, and don't call me Mimikins. As much as I like the nickname, the last thing I need is Nastasia thinking we're, well, you know..."

"Right, right. My apologies." He stuttered. "I just wanted to say that you should rest some before your next call into action. If you need me, I'll be scouring out some of Bowser's unassimilated supporters."

With embarrassment still bright on his face, Dimentio left in similar fashion to Tempo as a pulse of energy emitted from his original position and he left the room.

"Have fun." Mimi replied, before she, too, exited.

* * *

Bowser unfurled himself from his shell with pain jutting out from every fiber of his being; he endured the agony on all fours before rising up to his usual bipedal stature, confused about his surroundings: a dimly-lit, red-orange hallway with a number of blue, kaleidoscope-like patterns painted on the walls.

"This is probably the second or third strangest place I've ever taken a nap in, where am I right now?" The Koopa King asked to no one in particular before he remembered, "Wait. The wedding! PRINCESS?! MARIO?! WHERE ARE YOU GUYS?!"

"Mister Bowser?" A voice called out. Two goombas approached him. "Thank goodness, we were worried you wouldn't make it out of your honeymoon alive, but here you are."

"Gary? Gerald? It's great to see you guys!" Bowser welcomed the lesser minions in open arms. "How're you doing?"

"We're fine Mister Bowser, but we haven't had any luck finding anybody else." The second goomba replied. "We were hoping you'd like to lead the search party while Gary searches for more survivors."

"No problem Gerald. Let's skedaddle."

And like that, Bowser and Gerald made their way in search of other teammates. Said search did not last long when the only unlocked door led them to Gary helplessly trying to talk sense into some of his former comrades, whom all sported eighth note-shaped sprouts atop their heads.

The sound of footsteps halted the conversation as Dimentio appeared from behind the brainwashed group. The conversation between the goomba and jester were inaudible, with the exception of its ending, in which sounds of indescribable agony escaped from Gary as a green sprout grew on his head at the snap of Dimentio's fingers.

"GLORY TO THE ESTEEMED MISTRESS!" Rang through the hallway after the troops received orders from their higher-up. Bowser ran with Gerald in arm in the opposite direction upon the dispersal of the troops, fearing the possibility of losing another precious ally to the strange, cranial weed.

The duo were thwarted by the misfortune reaching a drop-off into the Void below, forcing them with only one choice.

"We need to turn around." Bowser thought aloud. His concentration was disturbed by a snap and the sound of Gerald screaming in pain. The goomba then proceed to nip at Bowser's arm in aggression before the Koopa King dropped the fungus, who scurried to the miniature army behind Bowser, led by non other than Dimentio.

"I'm sorry King Bowser, but this is the part where I need you to surrender. You won't feel any pain if you join us willingly, I promise." The jester pleaded, clearly distraught by the situation at hand.

"What are you doing to my people anyhow? Even under Peach's control, they're composed but hesitant to attack anything." The koopa asked hesitantly, inching closer to the edge of the drop-off.

"I'm persuading them into joining our cause, your highness. It's a cruel method, yes, but it only hurts for a little while." Dimentio prepared to snap his fingers once again. "I'm not a fighter your highness, nor are you, so let's finish this dispute before it has to begin."

Bowser snarled in defense, firmly holding his ground.

"I suppose we're doing this the hard way then." He held up his hand for the snap, but something struck and took hold of him; a tiny whisper that nagged over and over indefinitely, suggesting the same thing again and again. A tiny voice that seemed so incredibly tempting to obey, for whatever reason.

"Ah...ha...ha." Dimentio laughed to himself, not realizing that he'd done so. He snapped his fingers in accordance to the voice's demands, which caused a transparent box to surround the koopa and closed in on Bowser before teleporting him elsewhere. Immediately afterwards, the assistant snapped out of his trance, confused and exhausted but the events that had transpired.

"I...what? Why did I...?" He clutched his head. "Ow ow ow. Nevermind then, If he's gone, he's gone. We'll just have to deal with it later. I should be busying myself with the Mistress' accommodations anyway." Dimentio assured himself as he made his way back inside.

He couldn't help but feel like the voice he'd heard was familiar.

* * *

I remember the day we first met, the day that everything changed.

"Ughh...Uuugh..."

"You're awake at last?"

"Where...am I? Is this...a human's home."

"Don't wiggle like that. I found you at the cliff base. You took quite a fall."

"You're a human, correct? I don't...repulse you? I am of the Tribe of Darkness."

"Why would that matter? Anyone with a heart would not ignore an injured soul!"

For a moment, there was peace. But we should have known better. We should have known how everything would spiral out of control by meeting.

From that day forward, everything was going to be different.

* * *

Emerging through the red door, Luigi and his pixl companions found themselves back in Flipside with the orange Pure Heart in arm. A small, heart shaped ruby sparkled above the door as if to confirm the Pure Heart's successful collecting as Blecky insisted on the team returning to Merlee.

The group mutually agree and made their way down the elevator to the second floor. Luigi noticed that the Pure Heart he held gave off a familiar aura as it healed his wounds; it felt like he was being visited by an old friend in its presence. He realized that he had felt a similar aura with the red Pure Heart, but with a familial feeling, like when he and Mario hung out together on off days. Both Pure Hearts, he noticed, had an air of nostalgia to them that he couldn't quite shake off, but decided it'd be best to ask about why that was when he was with Merlee.

Right next to the elevator, Merlee's sunset colored house stood out like a sore thumb, but was a welcome sight nonetheless. Luigi "saved" before he entered, sensing something important was about to happen, but halted when he spotted the grey-robed fortune teller peaking out of his house. Luigi decided to introduce himself, which alerted the elder to his presence more violently than anticipated.

"Confounded Man in Green, do you not see that I'm already frightened to my wits?!"

"No sir, I'm sorry. I just wanted to say 'Hi'."

"Why does that matter?! I'm too sleep deprived to care! I should have become a Prognosticus interpreter! These eyes were meant to read the pages of fantastic prophesies, not the palms of the impatient! I keep having the same cursed dreams of my game ending at the top of the tower in that other world, I don't have time to read into the futures of others! I should have been a Prognosticus interpreter darn it all, I'm going back inside!"

"Can I at least get your name?"

"NO! I'M GOING BACK INSIDE!" And true to his word, the fortune teller returned to his abode and abruptly proceeded to slam and lock the door behind him as he continued to ramble to himself. Luigi felt a sort of sympathy emit from the Pure Heart's light and held it closer to his chest like he was hugging it. This seemed to return the Pure Heart to to its normal glow as he made his way back to Merlee's house.

"Eh, don't worry about Nolrem. He's always paranoid. I think it comes from seeing into the future all the time." Blecky assured to Luigi before they finally entered the sunset colored house.

The interior was a spectacle of red and orange walls lined with bookshelves; the pitch black ceiling glistened with star-shaped decoration and the floor was of a fine looking wood, covered by an elegant looking rug of a variety colors.

Merlee stood in the center of the room next to a small wooden table, her attention invested in a white book with a star on the cover. A little orange cat approached the heroes from behind her, mewing excessively at Blecky, who swooped down to pet the feline.

"Merlee! Voidslayer! We return with a beacon of hope in hand!" The bat called out.

Luigi couldn't help but snort at the rather inapt name of "Voidslayer" given to Blecky's cat; the sheer ridiculousness that was his first pixl partner brought worried looks upon Laddy and Boomer's faces, but they decided it best not to call out on their friend's peculiar obsession with singlehandedly vanquishing a world consuming vortex.

Merlee pried her eyes off the book in her hands to observe the luminescent glory of the Pure Heart in Luigi's possession, which seemed to pulse in his arms with Merlee's approach, like it recognized her.

"Greetings hero, how do you do? That's certainly a Pure Heart you have you! Come now hero, do not slack, what good news have you brought back?" The enchantress requested with excitement.

"We found the Pure Heart in a desert Merlee," Blecky began. "It was given to us by your ancestor, Merloo."

"Her ancestor?" Luigi asked.

"Yeah, Bleh heh heh. Merloo not only helped write the Light Prognosticus, he was also partially responsible for constructing Flipside. Without him, we probably wouldn't be here."

Then, a knock was heard at the door. Merlee excused herself to answer it, revealing Ellie on the other side.

"Hi Miss Merlee! Papa told me to come get you because a monster fell from the sky and he told me to tell you to check if it was dangerous because it scared him and he said it LOOKED dangerous so he wanted you to make sure and-" Ellie jabbered on and on until Merlee was able to calm her down enough to make sense of the girl's message and followed the girl up to the third floor.

Fearing the possibility that the monster in question may have been one of Tempo's followers, Luigi and his pixl allies tailed behind them, where they discovered the monster in question was actually a familiar face.

"Bowser?" Luigi approached the unconscious turtle in uncertainty. As much as he wanted to believe it was one of Mimi's tricks, he couldn't shake the feeling that beast in front of him was genuinely his friend and not a doppelgänger.

"You know him?" Blecky asked.

"Yes, he's my friend, and the king that Tempo had kidnapped."

"Is that so? Hey Merlee, you getting all this?" Blecky called out to the enchantress, who was observing the turtle's condition.

"This beast is ill, his skin is chill. Hero," Merlee turned to Luigi, "fetch something for his ailment, if you will. Might I implore, Howzit from the first floor? His cooking could help I'm sure."

Luigi nodded and made his way to the first floor, the Pure Heart now in his inventory, where the majority of the population housed; he was immediately able to distinguish the town's kitchen by the hanging sign above its doors.

The chef, Howzit, was astonishingly friendly, offering to cook a bowl of Spicy Soup to warm up poor Bowser with zero hassle. The hero gladly accepted the soup and made his round back to the third floor to deliver the steamy liquid. At his return, Ellie, her father, and Merlee were waiting by the dragon-like turtle.

Luigi gently forced open Bowser's maw to allow the soup to be eaten, slowly pouring in the substance as he did so. When the bowl was empty, the nostrils of the koopa flared slightly as he stirred awake; a puff of smoke seeped from the mouth after a small coughing fit. Bowser's eyes slowly opened as a yawn escaped from him and he clumsily stood upward.

"Mm, where am I this time?" He mumbled. His eyes focused unto the blurry figure before him; his eyes brightened up at the sight of his closest friend, whom he embraced with a warm reception in return from the dear plumber.

Deciding it best to catch up the koopa on current events, Luigi, Bowser, Merlee, and the pixls made way back the the enchantress' house. The overall conversation eventually led to Bowser, filled with determination, deciding to join Luigi on his quest to rescue his followers, his kingdom, and everything else out of moral obligation. Merlee took into account the fact that the Light Prognosticus had specifically mentioned the existence of four heroes to stop the Void, and deducted Bowser's arrival as a calling to his destiny, a reason that the koopa blatantly accepted without question.

This resolve alerted Merlee to explain the Heroes' new mission, since they were now in possession of another Pure Heart; the feat itself was no different from the first time Luigi had placed a Pure Heart into a pillar. The search for the Pure Hearts was a simple cycle of placing one Heart, locating the next one in the dimension provided through a new colored door, returning to town, rinse and repeat. The next pillars, however, were not in town, they were outside of town. With this in mind, Merlee handed a small key to the heroes.

"This key is to the fence outside, inside the Next the lock does hide. Be careful in the outskirts of town, for there are holes where you could fall down. They were dug by Tempo, while you were gone. Such is she, that wretched foe."

"Wait, why was she digging holes back there?" Luigi asked her.

"An answer to that I cannot see, so please, for my sake, be weary."

"...okay then." He said, and then left without further question.

At the bordering fence, Laddie flipped the team into the Next, where a gate and lock were now visible. Using the key, they unlocked the fence gate and returned to the normal dimension.

"Please don't make me have to do that too much in the near future." Laddie pleaded in exhaustion, having never delivered a creature of Bowser's mass into the Next and back in such a short interval of time. Luigi invited the tired pixl into his inventory to rest while the rest of the group moved onward.

Without the gate to block their way, Luigi and Co. passed into the outskirts of town, where there were indeed a copious number of recently dig up holes. Luigi had pulled out the orange Pure Heart again around this time and was allowing its energies to direct him to its respected Heart Pillar.

They eventually located the Pillar on top of a somewhat tall structure that would've been impossible to reach without Luigi's Super Jump or someone with the ability to glide based on the floating platforms that led to it.

Luigi leaped to the pillar with the Pure Heart in tow. At the top, he felt the familiar resonance of the Pure Heart ready to launch itself, and let go.

The second Heart Pillar pulsed like its predecessor as the Pure Heart lifted itself into its home inside the pillar, a light show of clockwork patterns displaying and then dissipating within seconds.

Back at the bottom, the pixls has conglomerated around Bowser's head space due to him complaining about a nasty pain in his cranium.

"It could be tumor."

"Or maybe fire lice! SHHPOW!"

"It's probably just a headache guys, lemme fix it with my acupuncture skills!"

"What's going on here?" Luigi questioned as he descended from the structure.

"The Super Turtle has a headache, so I'm gonna make it better! Bleh heh heh!" Blecky answered, completely inthralled by his task of scratching around in Bowser's bushy hair to find the exact location of the koopa's pain.

"Well, you go do that I suppose. I was planning on booking us a night at the Inn so we can be rested for tomorrow."

"Why can't we just head out right now? The sooner we stop that Void, the better." Blecky concentrated on one particular location inside the fiery bushel that made Bowser mutter in pain.

"We'd be better off well rested and traveling in daylight then still exhausted from our travels in the Linelands and bumbling about at night."

"That wouldn't matter anyway." He massaged around the area of impact, causing Bowser to growl. "Last time I checked, the Yellow Pure Heart was in Gloom Valley, which is always trapped in eternal sunset, except for when its nighttime of course."

"I'm still going to book us a stay at the Inn."

"Fine by me." Blecky sighed, the pressure on the area eventually pulled something out from the sensitive spot on Bowser's head after the koopa began to whimper loudly. The bat pixl pulled on the something until he was able to retrieve it, a little brown seen which he precariously handed over to Luigi for safe keeping.

With the removal of the seed, Bowser's head was at ease and the team was able to make way to the Inn, where Luigi and Company slumbered peacefully the entire night.

After many careful preparations the following morning, the team rode the elevator up to the top of Flipside Tower, where an orange door as elegantly designed as it's red predecessor stood to the right of the first.

With an air of excitement leading the way, the Heroes passed into the Orange door into Gloom Valley.

* * *

 **Me-That's the chapter! Hope you guys enjoyed.** **Next week, we're going to Gloom Valley, YEHAW!**

 **Dimentio-...**

 **Me-Stop giving me that look, I'll get 'em done!**

 **Dimentio-...**

 **Me-...and the next chapters for Reboot.**

 **Dimentio-...good.**

 **Me-...Adios.**


	8. Chapter 2-1: Bogging to Merlon's

**Me-Welcome back ladies and germs!**

 **Nastasia-...You-**

 **Me-Don't test me, Nassy. It's called testing season. Review time!**

 **Space Dimentio (ch. 1-1): I felt that Luigi would be too OP if he alone could Super Jump AND Flip into 3D, so I gave the latter for Laddie so I'd have an excuse for Mario to get the Flip. Plus, the little beta pixl needs LOVE!**

 **Opal: I think we ALL want to hug Bowser, let's be honest he deserves them.**

 **FierySprites: Thank you for the feedback. My attention to insignificant details makes writing dialogue kinda hard. Action is kinda hard too when you try to novelize a platformer, but even so I'll try my best to improve on both things.**

 **DISCLAIMER- I still don't own Super Paper Mario. If I did there would have been a sequel by now.**

* * *

With his friend Bowser at his side, Luigi bounded onward to the next part of his journey. According to Blecky, the next Pure Heart lied in possession of the wise hermit known as Merlon, who lived in an extravagant, trap-filled mansion.

Despite the potential danger implicated with Merlon's mansion, the heroes continued onward anyway, subconsciously weary of Mistress Tempo's dastardly plans for them in this new location.

 **Chapter 2-1**

 **Bogging to Merlon's**

The other side of the orange door welcomed the heroes with a gentle, sunset-colored sky. The marsh surrounding them was surprisingly empty of trees, instead there were tall vines scattered about that stood on their own and curved from the top. The water reflected a orange soda color against the sky, constantly splashing onto the damp ground from the green Cheep Cheep fish that occasionally surfaced.

Blecky flew forward instinctually, attempting to locate the Pure Heart.

"It's up ahead...somewhere. I can't place a specific location, just somewhere."

"Well," Luigi added, "let's continue on ahead then. A mansion shouldn't be that hard to find."

Of course, an adventure would be imperfect without conflict, so it came as no surprise to the team when they were approached by a flock of Paratroopas while trying to cross the water. Boomer was avid to blow them up, and gleefully did just that, de-winging the Koopas, and causing them to fall into the water.

"BABOOSH!" Boomer called out. "Now that's a cannonball!" He directed to the waterlogged koopas, who were being fished out by Bowser; Blecky, in turn, took it upon himself to gouge the green sprouts from the craniums of the koopas, a feat that led to failure as the stubborn plants kept themselves deeply rooted in their hosts heads.

Deciding that nothing could be done with the plants at this time, Luigi and company flipped the koopas upside-down to be dealt with later and continued on their merry ways.

After the initial flock of paratroopas, the most the heroes had to deal with were the squigs and and cheep cheeps, both of which were easily avoidable since they never traveled in groups larger than two or three at a time, until a secondary flock appeared; these paratroopas were much faster, and more aggressive, than the ones before, easily avoiding Boomer's usual attacks and remaining out of reach of both Luigi's Super Jump and Bowser's signature fire breath. The most they could do to avoid the flying foes was to take refuge underwater.

The cold water of the marsh danced around them, the pixls clung onto any nearby hero as they descended; a cavelike area looked to serve as a possible shortcut, which the group instinctively headed towards. They swam upwards into the "cave" until they breached the surface, their eyes meeting an empty room of blue brick.

"This room...there's something in here." Blecky murmured. He flew into the room's center in search for something, before landing on a singular space in mid-air.

"This block is invisible," He declared, "but you should be able to hit it without my powers."

Luigi climbed out of the water and struck the block with little trouble. Upon being struck, the block vanished and a large chest dropped at the end of the room.

Beckoning for the others to approach, Luigi took it upon himself to open the chest. He unhitched the lock and slowly opened the box; he was greeted to a swift punch upside his jaw, courtesy of a square, orange pixl with floating blue circles that made the fairy akin to a hand. His beady eyes glared from the palm, and gave an impression of being naturally aggressive.

"Sweet freedom!" The pixl called out. "I thought I'd never get out of that blasted box."

Luigi rubbed his aching jaw while Bowser helped him stand up, the impact having knocked him to the ground.

"Thoreau? BABOOM! Is that really you my man?"

"Boom? Lad? Where've you guys been? It's been what, 1500 years? You're looking great!"

While Boomer and the recently introduced Thoreau caught up, Laddie deliberately excluded theirself from the conversation to watch Blecky insert himself into the clique.

"What is it that you do Thoreau?" Luigi asked.

"I pick things up and toss 'em at wicked speed, but I can throw a sick punch like the one you received as well. That includes spiked enemies as well. I can pick up just about anything, so long as it ain't too big. Anything about your friend's size and larger is my absolute limit, so I suggest some restraint for my powers." He held himself out like he was set for a handshake. "Put 'er there partner."

Luigi obliged, and Thoreau fluttered behind him afterwards with the rhythm of of a heartbeat, as if blood actually flowed through the hand through nonexistent veins connected to an invisible heart. The plumber cued for his team to return outside, having already planed out a proper use for their handy new companion.

They returned outside with the paratroopas waiting patiently; utilizing Thoreau's expert projectile launching techniques, Luigi was able to throw Boomer at a speed to fast for the turtles to dodge, and knocked them out of the sky.

After fishing out the foes like last time, they proceeded onwards without further arial annoyances.

"Glad you could give us a hand Thoreau!" Luigi and Blecky both called to hand-shaped pixl. A chorus of groans erupted from their fellow party members in response.

"That was soooo bad you guys." Bowser complained, trying to hide the slight amusement on his face.

"And yet you smile, my scaly friend." Was Blecky's reply as he crawled into Luigi's hat to take a nap. Luigi did not bother to argue with the sassy bat, instead he led the team as usual without any particularly deadly enemies to halt their progress.

* * *

Eventually it became apparent that the group was lost. The marsh lacked any distinct features that they could find, making it feel like they were walking in circles.

Bowser had suggested that a pixl fly upwards to find the mansion, but this only cause a dispute among the fairies, well, most of them; Laddie had been exploring the Next to find a possible trail when the others had started bickering.

"I suppose I can do." Laddie sighed. They weren't particularly fond of heights, which was strange for a ladder-making pixl, or any flying creature in general, but they decided that it would be better to comply with their job than complain about it, and managed to pull through.

Laddie returned to the ground with a clear cut path to the mansion in mind, which they would gladly share...once the other pixls stopped fighting.

* * *

After breaking up the fairy-sized conflict and separating each of its fighters, Luigi and co. followed Laddie's guidance to the edge of the marsh, where the land was stable and much dryer. From that point forward, they only had to walk forward until the mansion was within sight.

Admittedly, there were now flocks of paragoombas to worry about, but the flying fungi were much slower flyers than their turtle counterparts and were that much easier to defeat because of it. The only problem with fighting these goombas was their tenancy to bite in their more aggressive states, but even that was avoidable with quick reflexes. Besides, if there was one thing that Luigi had learned from adventuring, it was that finding enemies was a sign you were going the right way.

With this, and Laddie's guidance, in mind, the green plumber continued onward until the silhouette of a building became visible from a large clearing. A shady figure in dark blue crouched behind a rock, staring in the direction of the silhouette, and unaware of the heroes' presence behind him.

Luigi approached the figure with a gentle tap on the shoulder, which caused an aggravated shout to call from them.

"Watch it bub!" The figure turned his sickly mug to Luigi with a sneering tone. "I've been waiting for my crew to come back all day from Merlon's Mansion, so stay out of there."

"...Are you a thief?" Blecky asked abruptly.

"No, but I am a master of secretly and procedurally obtaining the property of others for zero charge."

"So you're a thief?"

"Yes, and my crew are planning on taking whatever treasure that old hermit Merlon is hiding inside that empty old mansion of his. A man that fills his entire house with traps has to be keeping SOMETHING of great worth."

The heroes looked at Blecky in confusion.

"You didn't tell us Merlon filled his house with traps, Blecky." Said Bowser.

"Oh yeah, I suppose I didn't." The bat shrugged, "That's okay though, the traps are only there to protect the Pure Heart so we can retrieve it. It'd be kinda bad if it was stolen."

"Ah." Bowser and Luigi muttered simultaneously.

"Well, at least I THINK that's why. I've never been inside."

This response caused the duo to fall down in utter shock and annoyance.

"Wait, you're telling me there is ZERO treasure in there, as far as you know?" Cried out the thief. "If I wasn't so intimidated by your big scaly friend, I'd beat the tar outta all of you! I've been leading my team into a death trap this entire time!"

"Well that's your fault then isn't it?" Asked Thoreau, who was about ready to pummel the thief in his smug, beady-eyed, swap-green, bean-shaped face.

"Thoreau, be nice." Was Luigi's only response as he grabbed the pixl by a small red tail, to hold him back from hurting the man. "We'll inform your team for you sir, just promise us you'll turn yourselves in so we won't have to enact our justice unto you."

"Yeah, ok, whatever, just get my boys outta there." The thief pleaded as he slowly backed away from Luigi and Co., who marched onward to Merlon's Mansion as intended.

* * *

Walking directly to the front door was, apparently, out of the question there was a wall blocking the way. Not just any wall either, this wall was built high enough that Luigi couldn't reach the top, strong enough to be immune to Boomer's explosions, and expertly constructed to be just as impassible in the Next. Knowing there had to be an alternate route, the heroes searched for one.

"Gee, it sure would be nice if we had a ladder." Said Thoreau, who was a little more than annoyed that Laddie did not have their usual powers on hand. The ladder pixl intended to put their foot down at this taunt, but decided against it when Luigi managed to locate an entrance to a sewer system, with a completely intact ladder to climb down. Laddie did not have to point this out for it to be any more ironic for Thoreau and continued to remain silent until their advice was needed.

Heading in the direction of the mansion, the heroes trekked trough the dank tubes, anticipating to find an exit. A five minute walk in the same direction eventually brought the Heroes to a surprising sight, a wall shlurps blocking the way to an upwards ladder. Peculiarly, the shlurps were not near as aggressive as the one fought underneath Yold Town; these creatures were actually more passive than squigletts, not even bothering to acknowledge the Heroes.

Taking a deep sigh of relief, Luigi made way to the ladder, and clambered up its sturdy rungs. He tried to open the hatch, but found it to be sealed shut; the layout of the room blatantly signified that the clumsy slug monsters were part of a puzzle that would unlock the hatch.

A colored square was present on each corner of the room as a raised surface. Recognizing the layout presented, Luigi assumed the shlurps needed to be pushed onto the colored pressure plates to activate the locking mechanisms of the exit. Naturally, he tried to push one of the shlurps; the creature refused to budge. It was too heavy to carry on his own either, so he called onto Thoreau to help carry the slimy beast.

Bowser carried one of the creatures over to a corner with some difficulty, but was successful nonetheless as the the square descended slightly with a satisfying 'clunk'. This process was continued with the last two corners, and like that the hatch unlocked with an ear-grating, but somehow more satisfying screech of metal sliding against metal from the inner mechanisms of the exit.

The hatch now opened with ease, and the Heroes were able to leave the cramped sewers. Though the above was pitch black, the moon above lite the way to Merlon's Mansion a few miles away. With hope in their hearts, Luigi and co. leisurely approached the the next Pure Heart's fortress of solitude.

* * *

 **Me-And that's it! Next week, we go into Merlon's Mansion.**

 **Nastasia-Assuming you finish the chapter that is.**

 **Me-Quiet, you! SEE YOU GUYS NEXT WEEK!**

 **Nastasia-Hopefully.**

 **Me-SHHHHHH!**


	9. Chapter 2-2: Tricks, Treats, Traps

**Me-We're at Merlon's Mansion! And I don't have to be sassed by story characters today because I got the chapter done one time!**

 **Blecky-Barely.**

 **Me-What did I JUST say?!**

 **Blecky-Bleh heh heh~**

 **DISCLAIMER TIME BECAUSE WE GOT NO REVIEWS: I don't own Super Paper Mario or the Mario franchise. Those are all property of Nintendo.**

* * *

Finally past the foe-filled swamp, the Heroes strutted towards the imposing residency before them.

"So this is Merlon's Mansion." Said Bowser, relieved to know the group would not longer have to traverse the rancid swamp.

If the group could find the Pure Heart with haste, they'd be gone in no time; but fate, of course, had a tendency to provoke Luigi with unnecessary challenges. Nonetheless, they stepped foot onto the lawn of the trap-plagued property in anticipation.

 **Chapter 2-2**

 **Tricks, Treats, Traps**

The large, expansive manor stood dark and intimidatingly. The lack of any external lighting from the mansion did not seem to bode well with either of the Heroes, but they had no choice to proceed under the belief that the Pure Heart indeed resided inside.

Luigi rapped on the front door, accustomed to doing so whenever he needed to enter a house of any sort on his journeys. When no one answered after a second and third try, he grasped the door handle, gently pulling, and then pushing when the door did not respond to being pulled. The door creaked open when pushed, greeting the Heroes with dead silence.

The group let themselves inside when nobody came to scold them for breaking in or letting the air in; the interior certainly made up for the reception provided by the exterior with maroon colored walls and midnight blue curtains. The only unwelcoming sight was a group of large, blue, six-legged, stripe-horned, no-eyed, mangle-toothed, guard-dog like beasts waiting to devour them whole, or rather "kick them out" as Blecky put it as he analyzed the mangy creatures.

They were called Gnips, and were apparently trying to keep the group out of harm's way. Since they were all mouth however, they're methods of getting people away from harm involved scooping people into their mouths and spitting them out on the front porch, which brought the Heroes back a square one in terms of getting inside the mansion.

They tried again, this time by traveling in the Next.

...

The gnips were in the Next as well.

Granted, they were easier to avoid in the Next, so the Heroes narrowly dodged the slobbering maws of the guard dog-like creatures and entered the following room, closing the door behind them. Having left the Next, Luigi took a head count before examining the hallway before them.

It has same maroon walls and wooden floors as the last, but lacked any windows. Paintings whose eyes seemed to follow the viewer scattered the leftmost wall above a tall staircase. The floor they stood on had two doors, the furthest of which was blocked by a silvery suit of armor with yellow-gold trim around the mouth of the helmet and a cape of similar color.

Intrigued by the peculiar placement of the armor, Luigi approached the suit with great interest, noticing the elegant design of the trim and the imprint of a yellow-gold heart on the chest of the suit. The suit's hands held a broadsword, pointed downward on the ground it stood upon; the engravings on the side spelled out something, but the language was completely foreign to anyone in the group, aside from Blecky of course, who seemed to know everything.

The little bat hovered towards the sword to translate, but was startled off when the armor started speaking to the group as loudly as possible.

"OI! WHAT IN BLAZES ARE YE DOIN' 'ER?!" Called out the armor.

Normally, an outburst like this from an inanimate object would have started a chorus of yelling, but when one put into account the things that the Heroes had already been through that day, they would understand why the group was only mildly confused.

"We came to find Merlon." Said Luigi, who was more use to the concept of haunted objects than any normal person should be.

"He's busy. Also, this place is hainted." Replied the armor.

"Don't you mean haunted?" Muttered Blecky, who was peaking out from underneath Luigi's hat.

"Hainted! Haunted! Does it matter? There's ghosts 'ere!" The suit was obviously getting annoyed.

"I've fought plenty of ghosts in my life." Luigi bragged, "I even had one join me on an adventure once. Granted, I've also gotten my identity stolen by one as well, but that's not important right now. Right now, we need to speak with Merlon, so which way is he?"

"ARE YE MAD?!"

"No, but I am mildly aggravated at the minor inconveniences that I've had to deal with for the past few days."

"THERE ARE HAINTS 'ERE!"

"Does it matter?" Asked Bowser, "We have to find the Pure Heart so the worlds can be saved."

"Saved? Whyever would ye need te save 'em fer?"

"Don't you know? The Void has appeared to destroy everything."

"Whut? Bah! I don't believe ye!" The suit scoffed. "Whatever, ye can go look fer Merlon all ye want, just remember that this room behind me is off limits."

"Why?"

"It just is."

Deciding that this was an acceptable answer, the Heroes decided to start their trek for Merlon, after Luigi spent time at another 'save point' of course.

"Do you have a name?" Blecky asked the irritable suit.

"I'm a hainted suit of armor, of course not!" It replied.

"Can I name you then?"

"What? Why wou-"

"I'm gonna call you 'Al'."

"Why?!"

"Bleh heh heh~" Instead of answering, Blecky flew back to rejoin his teammates, leaving the suit to curse out the spunky little bat as he and the others went through the door next to the armor.

The room was an exquisite one that was for sure; they judged it to be a dining room based upon the long table that stretched from the room's center. They couldn't see much else though, their vision was limited to the candles on the table.

Luigi felt the wall for a light switch, eventually finding one to the far right of the door they came from. Flicking the switch, for one reason or another, did not light up the room, which urged the plumber to search for a fuse box.

The search, however, was untouched upon as a trap door opened beneath Luigi's feet, dropping him into a featureless room inhabited by exactly three Boos, round, ghost-like creatures that were relatively harmless and lonely.

The spirits whispered among themselves in the presence of the fallen plumber.

"Will you look at that, another one fell down."

"He's a funny looking one isn't he."

"I don't think he's from around here."

"Didn't the sir say that he was expecting a funny looking person?"

"I believe so yes, let's give him the key to the room upstairs."

"That sounds like a plan, yes yes."

The specters made haste and carried the plumber back up the opened trap, placing a key in his hand as they did so. Once in the dinning room, the boos placed Luigi back at the room's entrance before going back inside the hole and closing the trap behind them.

"Thank you." Mumbled Luigi, facedown in carpet.

The others had already searched the rest of the room without much awareness as to what exactly happened, but seemed pleased to know that the green-clad man had a key. After all, when there's a key, there's a lock that goes with it.

Their next stop was upstairs, which contained three doors, all of which were locked.

"Hey Al, why're all the door upstairs locked?" Asked Blecky.

"Te keep out the crooks, ye crazed loon." Said the armor. "An stop calling meh 'Al'!"

Blecky did not hear the latter part of the suit's statement as he had already flown off to catch up with his teammates as they unlocked the door closest to the stairs.

The next room was a bedroom, mostly likely for guests based on the simple arrangement of its silhouette, for the room was quite dark.

"Blecky, can you use echolocation?" Luigi asked.

"Echowhatnow?"

"Can you use sound to see?"

"Oh that! No, I can't." The bat shrugged, "Sorry."

"That's fine."

"Wait," exclaimed Thoreau, "what kinda bat can't use ec-"

"ANYWHO!" Interrupted Blecky as he proceeded to the ceiling fan in the center of the room. "let's go find another key."

"But-"

"THE KEY THOREAU!" He shouted with a chain attached to the fan in his mouth. He yanked the chain in hopes of light, or a cool breeze. While the fan did actual spin, it did so rapidly and only for a split second as the bed underneath collapsed into another trap door.

"Ah sweet!" Said Boomer, "I got this. FIRE IN DA HOLE!" With that as his only warning, the bomb pixl dropped into the abyss.

"I'll get him..." Sighed Bowser, who trudged into the hole after Boomer.

The fall wasn't all that great, so Bowser landed into the room beneath without too much harm. In contrast to the previous trap room, this one contained a trio of lurking bat-like creatures called Swoopers. They were a common sight in the Mushroom Kingdom, but this fact did not make fighting the beasts any less annoying, especially since Boomer's explosion had wakened them from their slumber.

The swoopers were quick, diving towards the Koopa at all angles to latch onto his tough skin and suck the life out of him. Bowser retreated into his shell while the barrage of bats continued, the pests slamming against it to knock him onto his back, where they could attack his exposed belly. Boomer slammed himself against the creatures with his own might in attempt to shoo them away from his scaly friend; this action only encouraged the swoopers to behave more aggressively.

Having decided he'd had enough nonsense, Boomer launched himself towards Bowser and exploded on impact, blasting away the bats within a certain radius. Sensing that he was no longer in danger, Bowser uncurled himself to climb up the exit; he plucked a key tucked into the corner of the room before exiting with Boomer fluttering behind him. They emerged from the hole, back in the guest room that was suspiciously empty. The annoyed yelling from outside heavily implied that their comrades had returned to the hallway to bother 'Al' while they waited.

Sure enough, the rest of the team was outside the guest room, leaning against the guardrail opposite of the door; the only exception was Blecky, who was playing 20 Questions with the haunted suit of armor while the others were upstairs. Luigi made a sharp whistle, which alerted Blecky to congregate with the other Heroes, who were unlocking the next room.

The middle upstairs door led to a bathroom with a typical sink and toilet on one end, and a shower tub on the other. The trap door in this location was much more obvious, as seen by how the bathroom rug depressed into the floor. A quick removal of the rug revealed the hole to the next trap room, which the whole group leaped into, the opening sealing behind them.

A group of shlurps loafed about, uninterested by the strangers. The heroes searched the room throughly to no avail, every nook and cranny in the dank room was fruitless; logically, the heroes could only assume that the shlurps were needed to find the key. Boomer, with a mixture of enthusiasm and disgust, allowed himself to be consumed by each shlurp in the room, combusting within their insides to discard of them.

A chest fell from the ceiling, urging Luigi to investigate. While there was certainly a key in the chest, the team was faced with a new problem. The room was a special scenario where one had to chose between either the key or the exit. If the shlurps were defeated, the key to the final room appeared, but if a shlurp, or something of equal weight, was pushed onto a pressure plate that the group discovered at the last minute, the exit would open up.

"I could try weighing it down." Suggested Bowser. While his weight was certainly enough to open the hatch, the switch proved to be a fickle thing that required the weight on it at all times to keep the exit available for use.

"We could get Thoreau to push the box over." Said Laddie.

"Why don't you build us a ladder outta here, Laddie." Mumbled Thoreau.

"A ladder can't get us out of a sealed room, Thoreau. Why are you being so irritable?"

Thoreau didn't respond.

"Well?"

He still refused to respond. Instead he flew to Bowser, lending him some of his strength, and then urging the koopa to push the disproportionately heavy box onto the switch, all without speaking a single syllable.

"I guess we can exit now." Said Luigi, briefly looking at Thoreau rather crossly before climbing up the hole.

With little to no exchange between the group, Luigi unlocked the furthest upstairs door into the master bedroom. It was the only well lit room in the vicinity, and also the tallest. A whimpering sound could be heard from one side of the room in a loft-like area. The loft was seemingly inaccessible due to the broken ladder at the foot of the bed, shattered to pieces by some form of brute strength. Luckily, the loft was a decent enough height that Luigi could reach it by a hair, so the plumber made his way up with a hop, skip, and a jump to find the source of the whimper.

Slipping through the boxes of junk and rubbish, Luigi reached the back of the loft to find a rather small, and terrified gnip of bluish color.

"That's Gnaw," said Blecky, "he's the runt of the litter waiting at the entrance. Merlon normally takes especially good care of him to help him grow. What's he doing up here? It doesn't seem like a safe place for such a little thing."

"He's shaking..." said Luigi. He beckoned to the little gnip, who scurried towards the plumber, and then abruptly stopped, unable to move forward due to a undetachable chain on the wall. Luigi then called up Laddie, who delivered him to the Next. A visible latch appeared on Gnaw's collar, which the plumber unfastened; the collar slipped off without problem, prompting Gnaw to run about and bark in joy.

The little gnip launched Luigi onto its back, carrying him with great speed and agility off the loft, barging through the bedroom door and dashing downstairs. The canine-like creature, huffed and growled at the suit of armor, kicking open the doors to the entrance hallway as he did so.

There was one thing not brought up in Blecky's description that deserves some merit at this point; while Gnaw was indeed the runt of his litter, he was no coward, and was, in fact, the alpha of the pack. With this in mind one could certainly understand why, upon allowing the much larger gnips to enter the main area, the rest of Gnaw's pack would put all other intrusions aside to attack the gleaming suit of armor that their leader utterly despised, and utterly catapult the suit out of the vicinity with great haste.

The suit of armor, more annoyed than it had been previously, shouted a good number of unlisted profanities at the beasts as they carried it out of the mansion, allowing Luigi and co to proceed through the previously obstructed door. Gnaw rubbed against the plumber in utmost content, now that the suit of armor was gone.

"I wonder what Al did to bother Gnaw so much." Said Blecky, "I understand it must have been a sign of gratitude but it seems a bit strange that he'd go after an empty suit instead of a group of obviously uninvited intruders."

"Whatever the case," panted Bowser, who had been making his way downstairs as fast as possible when Gnaw was released, "we've got one more option for us to search for Merlon, since it seems he's not in this particular section of the house."

"Good point." Luigi agreed, "That suit must have been trying to deceive us. Merlon's most likely deeper inside."

As soon as everyone has been accounted for and the kind gnips were thoroughly thanked for their help with a bounty of pettings, Luigi and co passed through the previously obstructed door, entering a long, expansive hallway into the heart of the mansion.

* * *

 **Me-AND THAT'S THE CHAPTER!**

 **Blecky-I miss Al, he was cool.**

 **Me-Indeed he was Blecky, indeed he was. ADIOS!**


	10. Chapter 2-3: Breakout

**Hey guys, I'm back. Sorry for the two-week delay. I kinda lost interest in the story for a while.**

 **I got a lot reviews so let's get them over with.**

 **Opal: Yes, "Al" is O'Chunks. I'm surprised nobody recognized that was a Fullmetal Alchemist reference though, I thought it was very clever.**

 **Space Dimentio: It's hard for me to reply to all of your great reviews, so I'll start off with a Thank You. I will admit, it took me a while to apply Mimi's assasination attempt because of how uneventful Yold Town was, so I made it interesting. As for Merloo, you BET that he's gonna be in the side quest. Things like Tempo digging holes and Blecky's cat are based off things from this story's ask blog, the hole digging in particular is based on Tempo following the example of Cards Against Humanity and digging a Holiday Hole.**

 **DISCLAIMER- I don't own Super Paper Mario.**

* * *

Deeper and deeper did the Heroes search for Merlon, having yet to find a single sign of his occupancy.

"Wherever could he be?" Asked Blecky. "Perhaps he is this way, I can sense the Pure Heart somewhere ahead!"

With a sudden sense of dread, they proceeded through the dimly lit corridors.

 **Chapter 2-3**

 **Breakout**

The lack of Merlon's presence was become more and more of an issue the deeper Luigi and co delved into the mansion. They had searched every nook and cranny in search for him. Every door proved empty, every call proved without response, and every prayer proved unanswered. The group eventually decided that it would be in their own best interest to take a break after possibly hours of zero progress.

"Where is he?" Asked Blecky, resting underneath Luigi's hat. "I might not know Merlon very well, but I know enough to confirm that the guy would normally be very willing to approach us."

"Speaking of people we haven't seen, that thief from two chapters ago said he sent a team into this place right?" Added Laddie.

Luigi and Bowser nodded their heads in confirmation. The sound of a switch being flipped echoed across the hall as a trapdoor opened underneath the heroes, dropping them into an inescapable abyss.

Bowser was the first to land, being an organism of much greater mass, followed by Luigi, who landed on the koopa's stomach, and then by Blecky, who was too panicked in his fall to flap his wings. The other pixls fluttered down after them, having nothing except for a 'herd-of-sheep' mentality to follow their beloved shepherds.

The hexagon-shaped room was more akin to a prison than anything else, and the room they landed was like a jail cell. There were two other cells with prisoners in them as well; one cell had a group of shady characters dressed in dark colors, obviously the gang of the thief outside, while other held a group of characters that were Egyptian in their style of dress, garbed in yellow and purple sphinx hats and matching skirt-like clothes around their waists.

"Those shirtless guys are called Ackpows." Noted Blecky, "They're clearly not from here, but I don't think they came to steal anything."

"That's correct small, flying rodent." Said one of the ackpows, "We are loyal customers to Merlon's trap-based wares. We come here often to buy traps to protect our recently deceased kings."

"And queens!" Added another ackpow.

"Yes, and queens." Corrected the first one.

"You're telling me Merlon SELLS all these traps?!" Asked Luigi, noticeably ticked off.

"Well, duh bro. You think people across the universe just make their own traps?"

Luigi grumbled to himself in annoyance as he paced the cell for any sort of exit.

"If you guys are consumers, why are you in a cell?" Bowser asked the ackpows.

"We're not sure. We were waiting upstairs at our usual meeting place to discuss our most recent investment, when those sock wearing buffoons busted in, we all got got dropped into here."

"Well, whatever the reason, we'll get you all out of here. Right Luigi?" Luigi wasn't there however, he had found a hidden hole within the Next akin to a sewer system. The plumber called his friend down, with Laddie's help of course, and the team followed the cramped tunnels to a large chest that seemed to emit a sort of echoing song from within.

Assuming a key inside at best and a trap at worst, Bowser insisted on opening the chest in Luigi's stead after what happened when they met Thoreau. A calm voice hummed from within the box as a beady-eyed, rectangular pixl of blue and purple hovered out. The pixl had a semi-circlular wing on either top corner and a tail underneath it's body with a gold ring trailing behind.

"Salutations and good morn, amore.~" The pixl sang, "How long I've waited, forlorn, amore.~ For the worlds we must not mourn, amore.~"

"Hello Fleep." Said Laddie, "Might I ask why you're singing?"

"For the hero was told to wait, amore.~ A task that I do hate, amore~. So that I don't berate, amore~. A song sung to echolocate, amore~."

"Does that mean you'll stop?"

"Yes."

"Thank you."

"Welcome to Team Luigi, Fleep!" greeted Blecky, "What do'ya do?"

"I uncover what is trapped between time and space. It's not a very useful skill unless you like uncovering spacial rifts and finding other people's inter-dimensional loot."

"Boring. At least I can punch things in the face." Said the hand pixl himself.

"What exactly is your problem BA-bro? You seemed so pleased to see everyone earlier, now you're just being mean. Bada-boom." Asked Boomer.

Thoreau ignored the bomb, looking away with a distinct lack of trust in his eyes.

"Team Luigi?" The plumber asked Blecky.

"You're the boss, aren'tcha?"

Deciding he couldn't really argue with that explanation, Luigi let further uses of 'Team Luigi' slide so he could work with the newly acquired "Fleep" to find an exit to the jail cell. Immediately, the flipping pixl sensed a spacial rift next to his wooden prison and slipped through it, causing the entire group to warp back into the main part of the original jail cell.

In spite of being discombobulated from the trip, Luigi search the parameters of the confining space for any hint of a similar rift. Upon resting, back against the cell wall, he notice a group of markings on a brick that shimmered in a thunder bolt shape, similar to the rift that brought the group back to the cell. Luigi pointed this out to Fleep who used his powers to retrieve a key from between dimensions.

The key fit into the lock of their cell perfectly, the same, however, could not be said for the locks of the other two cells, urging Team Luigi to wander the general area beyond the cells to free the other prisoners.

The structure of the room was simple, due to the room being hexagon shaped, there were exactly three cells and three hallways, a hall between each cell and a cell between each hall, while the center of the room remained empty, but had a ceiling hatch that most likely led back to the main hallway. Each of the hallways, left, right, and forward led to doors with different puzzles inside.

The heroes decided to split up between the hallways next to their cell. Luigi took the left hallway with Laddie and Boomer, leading them to a seemingly empty storage room with a crack farther back. Luigi, being use to this sight, called upon Boomer to blast apart the wall to make an opening. The crack seemed fickle to pass through normally, so Luigi called upon Laddie afterwards, a tactic that, so far, had never failed to show hidden passageways for the plumber to access, and continued to never fail when Luigi squeezed through the crack to retrieve a key inside a chest.

Bowser, meanwhile, had taken the right hallway with Thoreau, where they were faced with a pit full of spikes. On the other side of the pit was a blue button, the kind that normally vanished upon being struck, just within fire-breathing distance. The koopa launched a fireball at the button, causing it to vanish and drop a key over in its place. The ceiling was too low to jump the gap, which meant one thing.

"Hey Thoreau, would you grab the key for me? Please?" Asked Bowser.

"You asked nicely, I don't see why not." Replied Thoreau, "It won't kill me to give you a hand."

Bowser groaned at the pun, but was glad to have the key in his claws.

The final group was Blecky and Fleep, who were still getting to know each other. Their hallway brought them to a broom closet. While they had no problems with their puzzle, Blecky finding a hidden 'X' marking and Fleep retrieving a button from the rift inside said button, the pixls were left with the predicament of actual pressing the button. They were 'finder' pixls, and therefore couldn't be utilized in combat, which in turn meant they had no attacks to activate the button. When all attempts to weigh down the button failed, there lay only one possible solution: knock down everything in the broom closet and pray something lands on it.

This shenanigan continued for several minutes and could probably hold up a story of its own, especially the part when Blecky got caught in a mouse trap; to be put simply, by the time they had finally gotten something on the button, their companions had already retrieved their keys, freed the prisoners of the other two cells, and gotten "thank you"s from each individual prisoner. The pixls didn't care however, they pressed the button that opened the escape hatch, and they were thoroughly pleased with the chaotic mess they'd made in the process; besides, they were pixl, they were just going to fly over the mess anyway.

With everyone free and the exit open, the heroes climbed upwards, back into the hallway they had fallen through, showing the team of thieves the way to the main entrance as they scolded them on why stealing was wrong, and receiving a business card from the Ackpows in the process. The heroes moved forward as they had done before, noting a light switch that had been flipped so violently that it could not be changed back.

"Who could possibly want to hinder our progress so badly as to trap us in a jail cell?" Asked Blecky, "We need to find Merlon and quickly, I'm getting some bad vibes about whoever is responsible for this."

"Right." Luigi and Bowser nodded as they marched further and further in the mansion, getting ever closer to the Pure Heart in the process.

* * *

 **With that we are almost done with Gloom Valley. I'll try to get the chapter done by next week this time.**


	11. Chapter 2-4: The Basement Face-off

**My apologies for this chapter being WAAAAAAY late. The spirit of procrastination got the best of me. Anywho, review time!**

 **space Dimentio:Yeah, the broom closet's destruction will definitely come back to bite everyone.**

 **DISCLAIMER- I don't own Super Paper Mario or it's properties.**

* * *

With little to no leads on Merlon's whereabouts and the constant barrage of traps tossed at them, Luigi and his friends wondered why such peculiar events were unfolding.

Their search eventually brought them to a set of stairs going downwards.

"Perhaps he's down here!" Said Bowser, "We don't have many options left anyway."

The heroes looked to each other, worried about where the poor man could have been. Knowing that this was the only place left to look, they ventured down into Merlon's basement.

 **Chapter 2-4**

 **The Basement Face-off**

"This seems to be the right way," said Blecky, "I can feel the Pure Heart's presence at a much stronger frequency from here."

"That's good." Luigi nodded.

Suddenly, an apparition appeared in the form of a cloaked man similar to Merloo, although this man wore blue instead of green, and his beard was longer and had an appearance akin to a cloud in both curliness and color; he wore the same yellow undershirt as Merloo however, which was something.

"Hello? Hello?! Are you the heroes? I hope this is projecting right." Said the figure, "This is Merlon, and if you are the heroes, I have quite a number of things to say. Point number one, you're all terrible at arriving on schedule, my ancestors and I have been waiting 1500 years for you to show up."

"Sorry." Luigi and Bowser muttered in unison.

"You should be! Point numéro deux, you've come at the worst possible time, there's a head hunter meandering about, looking for you and the rest of your party."

"What?!"

"Don't interrupt me. And for numero tres, I've hidden myself and the Pure Heart in the farthest reaches of my maze-like basement inside my personal library. I'd have waited for you at the main entrance, but gnips are more of a guard dog than a therapy dog for anxious people like myself, and I needed to stay as far away from danger as possible. Any questions?"

"Yeah, why do you have a library in your basement?" Asked Blecky.

"I'm a hermit, Blecky. You know exactly why."

Luigi raised his hand.

"Yes?"

"Why is your entire house booby trapped?"

"Business." He said bluntly, immediately cutting off the signal for his spectral form to continue the book he was reading.

"Wait. Did he just say that there was someone after us?" Blecky asked Bowser as Team Luigi stomped down the stairs.

"Yeah."

"Then why didn't Al stop them? He refused to let us, the heroes, pass by that one door. Surely he would've done the same thing for any other visitors."

He wasn't wrong, The whole scenario seemed bizarre beyond comprehension. They'd have to ask about that when they found Merlon. The maze took first priority.

The group decided the easiest way to get through was to follow the left wall of each room and hope for the best, a strategy that usually worked pretty well for Luigi especially. Going by this plan, the heroes were very quickly met with hostile forces like swoopers, shlurps and the occasional ticked-off boo, but they were at least getting somewhere.

Eventually they reached a particularly nice looking hallway with the familiar blue wallpaper, the very end of the led to a door, blocked by an all-too-familiar set of armor.

"Al!" Yelled Blecky, "How'd you get over here?"

"Fer the last time, me name ain't 'Al'." Grumbled the suit. "An' I got here with magic or somethin'. Ya know, hainted suit of armor an' all."

"Right right. Well, since you can move with magic, you think you could move out of the way?" Thoreau asked stubbornly.

"Can't, yer not allowed back 'ere."

"Says who?" Asked Luigi.

"Merlon."

"No he didn't! He told us to find him as soon as possible, you're lying!" Bowser yelled. Despite being the gentlest member of the group, Bowser couldn't tolerate even the tiniest of white lies, he realized early on that the armor had might have lied to the group when they found Gnaw, but hearing the suit after they had gotten instructions from Merlon was the icing on the cake.

The Koopa's rage caused him to shoot a fireball at the suit, causing the armor to actually move from its place and guard against the attack. The fire barely engulfed the metal, but the heat caused a noticeable change in armor's appearance, all the places where the metal was yellow-gold, which upon the start of the encounter was slightly chipped, seemed to melt off and reveal an inky black color instead.

"Black?!" Yelled Blecky in surprise, "But the Pure Heart here is yellow, the only black heart is-"

"The Chaos Heart?" The suit finished, it removed its helmet to reveal a man's face with brown, bushy eyebrows and a thin beard of similar color. "I'll admit, you lot've got some nerve te not heed me words of leavin', now I've got no choice but te bring ye to the Mistress with force."

"You were working with Mistress Tempo this entire time?!" Luigi asked in shock.

"Come on, are y'all really that gullible? O'Chunks be me name. I'm the Mistress' most loyal swordsman and warrior, an' if ye think yer gonna be leaving this world with a Pure Heart, ye best be mistaken."

"Guys, I think we're going to have to flee." Called out Luigi. "These hallways are too small for us to properly fight a fully armored man."

"I agree." Said Bowser, "LADDIE!"

"On it!" Laddie cried out, switching the team over into the Next to avoid the warrior and slip into the door behind him. They continued to follow their initial plan of sticking with the left side of the wall while they ran; they needed to find someplace large enough to fight O'Chunks, but every hallway proved too narrow for the job, and the number of enemies that were ambushing the Heroes was getting more and more overwhelming. While the foes were small enough to fight with ease, doing so put the Heroes at risk of their pursuer capturing them, forcing them to narrowly dodge the enemies in favor of distancing themselves from O'Chunks.

Further and further they delved, a crack in the wall proved useful when it revealed a hidden passageway to another area upon being destroyed by Boomer, and the Heroes slipped through to a deeper part of the basement. The group took a quick breather to analyze the room they had landed in, which contained a familiar puzzle involving shlurps. In front of them were three passages and three shlurps with each passage containing a pressure plate.

Although irritated at the repetition of the same puzzle for the 500th time, Luigi was glad that the puzzle was there, as it signified, through adventurer logic, that Merlon was close by. The first corridor had the plate blocked by a row of bars, which were passable through the Next. The second corridor had similar bars that existed in the Next as well, but lifted out of the ground when a timed button was pressed; Bowser used Thoreau to toss Boomer into the button and promptly push the shlurp onto the next plate. The last corridor had a glass wall blocking the way, but had a spacial rift that Fleep could use over the plate, a red "X" sat towards the heroes' side, where a shlurp was pushed onto; Fleeps powers warped the shlurp to the other side of the glass onto the button, dropping a key into the main part of the room.

"Hey guys!" Yelled Blecky, landing on the floor, "Check it out!" He touch the floor for a previously invisible hatch to become visible; the recently received key fit perfectly into the lock on the hatch which brought Team Luigi to the furthest part of the basement through a set of stairs. Luigi jumped beneath another 'save block' before going down, feeling another ominous wind blow against him. The stairs led to a wide open room with shelves of books covering every part of the wall.

"Well", started Bowser, "we found the library, but where's Merlon?"

"I told ye before lads, he ain't 'ere." Bellowed an incredibly Scottish voice. The warrior himself barged into the room, "Believe meh when I say I searched everywhere fer the old coot, I couldn't find a single trace of 'im. He probably skedaddled after I showed up."

"If you're so certain Merlon's not here, why'd you try to stop us?" Asked Luigi.

"I meself can't find the Pure Heart, but you lot can, so I had te make sure ye couldn't search the furthest reaches of the house." O'Chunks replied. "Lady Luck must be on me side today after all though, because I've locked the door behind meh, trapping you lads with me. Now ye got no choice but to either surrender or fight!"

"I'd rather DIE than surrender, you bear-faced, brain-dead brute!" Thoreau yelled, who curled up like a fist.

"I don't exactly agree with Thoreau's terms of dying," said Luigi, "but I am on equal terms of refusing to surrender."

"You'll have to fight us before you can take us!" Yelled Bowser in agreement, his teeth bared for attack.

"In the name of me Mistress, I will defeat yeh!" the swordsman declared as he placed his helmet back onto his head and drew his sword out; he charged at the Heroes with all his might with a hearty battle cry reminiscent to that of a barbarian.

The Heroes narrowly dodged, but were unprepared for the warrior to pull out his sword for a spin attack; Luigi was knocked to the other side of the room while Bowser was pushed back. The enemy attacked them with the flat end of the blade, an action that inflicted less damage, but was understandable since he was trying to capture them, not kill them.

Bowser retaliated at first with breathes of fire, which O'Chunks blocked with his blade, and then by charging back at O'Chunks, lunging at him with great force; O'Chunks was unprepared for the attack, receiving punctures in his armor as a result, but getting back at Bowser with another blunt hit from his sword. Blecky analyzed O'Chunks in the meantime, with the other pixls making sure Luigi was alright.

"O'Chunks seems to be a man skilled in both his fists, and with the blade." Said Blecky, "As long as he's got his sword to place distance between him and you, he's going to slap us aside."

"Then let's take his sword!" Commanded Luigi. Thoreau, though still annoyed by something, followed Luigi's order; when O'Chunks took another swing at Bowser, the hand pixl grabbed the weapon by the blade, pulling it out of the warrior's hand and tossing it across the room immediately afterwards. Thoreau punched a large dent into O'Chunks' helmet before returning to Luigi, who let the pixl rest in his bag.

"Oi! Ye think yer clever fer taken away me swords? These muscles ain't jus fer show!" Said O'Chunks as he balled up his fists.

Luigi dashed towards Bowser, "let's get him." Said the koopa as he lifted Luigi onto his back; the plumber held onto Bowser's shell as he charged at O'Chunks, breathing fire and ramming into him head-on. Luigi leaped off the shell to slam his hammer into the warrior's side. O'Chunks grabbed Luigi's leg, threw his at a wall, and rammed at Bowser who sternly held his ground. Luigi got back up and ran towards O'Chunks, summoning Boomer to explode next to O'Chunks.

The blast added more damage to O'Chunks' armor and pushed him aside as a result; he tried to reach the side of the room where his sword laid, but Fleep used his powers in the general area to briefly confuse the warrior. Luigi then landed one last blow on O'Chunks with his hammer, knocking the warrior to the ground.

"Yer tough…tougher than I imagined ye te be." He panted, hobbling towards his sword. The Heroes didn't try to stop him. "I guess I underestimated you lot. Next time I'll be prepared. Jus ye wait."

O'Chunks lifted his sword from the ground, carrying himself back up the stairs he came from and unlocking the door once more. As soon as his figure left their sights, Luigi and co looked to one another in exasperated relief.

"Now to find Merlon." Said Luigi, investigating the bookshelves. He'd been checking off the cliches associated with haunted houses the second he'd entered: ghosts, haunted armor, maze-like hallways, trapdoors, all that was missing was a secret doorway in the library. The books on the shelves, by observation, all had covers with shades of blue, all except for one book in the middle of a shelf, which was a yellow-gold color.

Pulling on the book, which was actually a switch, caused the shelf itself to slide open the entrance to a smaller library with different colored books, as well as a table and chair in the dead center. Sitting in the chair was none other than Merlon, indulged in a novel as if there were nothing wrong.

"Sooooo are you the one that meticulously put books with blue covers in the last room?" Bowser asked, too tired to be mad at this point. "'Cause if so, you have way too much time on your hands."

Merlon jumped, "Oh, you finally came." The shaman got out of his chair to speak with the group, "Judging by the ruckus I was hearing, I'd assume that you beat that brute upstairs?"

"Yes." Sighed Luigi. "Is there anything else that desperately needs doing?"

"Not at all! Now that we're in the clear, I can finally give you the Pure Heart." Merlon held out the sunny yellow heart, whose light melted away their injuries from the battle. "Before you go…there's one thing I should mention. As you both know by now, four heroes are required to defeat the great evil, but there is a saying passed down depicting this requirement: 'Four heroes unite, their hope burns forth light to shatter the walls of blight. This is how despair, it dies, such is what we prophesize here in the home of the wise.' I don't know why I was required to restate the obvious for you, but now that I have recited the quote for you, I can now pass this Pure Heart over to you pair, Luigi and Bowser, so you save us all from the darkness that looms above."

The Pure Heart levitated like its siblings into the air, then to the two heroes. With the proud wits of Luigi and co, they were able to best the trap-filled mansion and Mistress Tempo's enduring warrior, O'Chunks. The heroes pondered on who the remaining two heroes could have been as they left, knowing that the answers would come to them in due time.

With five more Pure Hearts waiting to be found, they marched back to Flipside through the orange-outlined door that materialized before them. The adventure was just beginning!

* * *

 **And that's it for Gloom Valley! I'll try to get the arc done in full next time.**


	12. Interlude 2

**Ayyyyy Look! I'm alive!**

 **I've actually had this chapter done since Ferbruary and was just holding back on posting it until now. The plan was to finish all of Chapter 3 and possible most of 4 before posting all the chapters one week at a time, but procrastination had other plans. I'm in the middle of writing the Chapter 3 sections as you read this, so the chapters ARE coming, just very slowly.**

 **Anyways, review time.**

 **SpaceDimentio: Thanks for the writers block assurance, it becomes more interesting whenever I upload these chapters since there's pretty much no rhyme or reason to their posting time. Also super glad you got my reasoning for O'Chunks' new occupation. ^-^**

* * *

"My Mistress, please forgive meh for failing you!" O'Chunks exclaimed as he stood before Mistress Tempo and Dimentio. The punctures, burns, scratches and dents on his armor were enough to prove that the heroes were much more formidable than predicted, even compared to his own strength.

"Don't worry dearest O'Chunks, I've already forgiven you." Said the Mistress, who let the Dark Prognosticus float next to her as usual. "I should have known that the heroes' strength would grow, they are descended from the Tribe of Ancients after all."

"Mistress!" Mimi's voice called as the assassin entered the chambers, "I came here as soon as I heard the news. Is O'Chunks safe?"

"Ay lass, you an' I both know I've been through worse." O'Chunks said, assuring his fellow follower.

"But your armor! I can only imagine the injuries underneath..." She turned to her boss, desperation in her eyes, "Mistress, you have to send me back out so I can teach them a lesson or two for hurting a fellow veteran."

"Now Mimi, you know we can't do that." Said Dimentio, almost scolding her, "Not while you're still in the middle or recovery."

"But-"

Tempo glared at Mimi mid-sentence, the latter immediately submitting to her higher-up.

"…Understood." Mimi bowed to her.

"I know you wish to enact revenge, but the physical condition of my followers must take priority over their fighting spirits." Announced the Mistress, "As such, I must call upon the only member of my higher-fellowship that is still in peak condition." She cleared her throats before calling out—"Nastasia!"

The Ringleader of Darkness herself dropped from the ceiling, startling her employers enough to make Mistress Tempo scream. "You request my services, Mistress?"

"Yes." Tempo mumbled, somewhat annoyed. The little gremlin she called her employee nearly gave her a heart attack. "I know you've been aching like crazy to show off your talents to the heroes since we first heard of them, now's going to be your chance to do that."

"Whatever you say, Mistress." Nastasia giggled to herself.

"And remember-" Tempo added before Nastasia left, "I want them alive!"

"Of course." The woman mumbled, as if there were a bad taste in her mouth.

"O'Chunks, you may go ahead to the infirmary, the Mistress will see to your wounds very shortly." Said Dimentio.

O'Chunks nodded with an 'Ay' before leaving the room, Mimi following after him as support.

"Mistress…" Dimentio began, "if you don't mind, I'll be running off to convert any of Bowser's supporters that aren't currently working for our cause, I'll report back shortly."

"Understood Dimentio." Tempo nodded, "Are you feeling any better from the wedding?"

"I've had some more dizzy spells…and the voices keep coming back…but it's probably nothing to worry about!"

"I know you insist it's nothing…but please be careful. Don't strain yourself too much. I want to be able to help you, like how you've been helping me."

"Yes, my Mistress." He nodded, before teleporting away in his usual fashion.

"Dearest Heroes, why do you try to stop me?" She clutched her locket, "Do you do so in spite? In faith? In righteousness?" The Mistress herself then left the room, her final question echoing through the empty chamber, "Or do you simply fear that which you don't understand, mistaking my personal ideology for something sinister?"

* * *

Mario woke up with his face planted in the floor, groggy and in pain, but otherwise fine; this was not unusual for the plumber. What was unusual however, was the place he'd woken up in. The floor's colors were something he couldn't quite make out, for he seemed to have struck his head in such a way that he couldn't differentiate colors properly; his only lead to prove that was the case was the pain he felt in his head, but it could have just as likely been a migraine.

"My aching head. Where am I?" He moaned as he stood up, he noticed his hammer was missing from his belt loop. "Oh right…the wedding…Princess Peach…that weird heart thing…"

"Mr. Mario, are you awake?" Asked a skittish voice. Approaching the man came a koopa troopa and an armored, mallet-tossing koopa variant known as a Hammer Bro, who both seemed just as dazed as he was.

"Honestly, now that you guys are here, I kinda wish I had stayed unconscious." Mario replied, being the intolerant man that he was. "Have either of you seen Princess Peach?"

"Not at all, sir." Said the hammer bro, "You're the only person we've managed to find since we woke up ourselves. Since you're here though, would you-?"

"No." Mario said bluntly, " I already knowing what you're going to ask, and no. I'm NOT going to lead you two around here to find your teammates."

"P-p-please! You must!" The koopa troopa insisted, "Everyone else has probably been caught or something! We stragglers need to stick together, right?"

Mario glared at them, "Everyone's missing so you need canon fodder for when you get caught, is that it? I don't understand why Luigi puts up with your kind…Luigi…" he looked away, "Little bro…I haven't seen you since the castle…are you hurt? I need to know…"

The plumber turned back to the turtles, looking them dead in the eye, "Normally I don't take the role of the brave hero for you shell-shocked cowards, but my love for my brother is stronger than my disdain for your species, so I'm going to help you just this once."

"Thank you sir!" The koopas cheered as they saluted. "After you sir!"

Mario nodded, leading the turtles through the winding halls before them, seeming to get more lost the deeper they went. It wasn't until they approached a dead end that they found trouble.

"That's not particularly good." Mario mumbled.

"I'll say!" The terrified hammer bro said, "If we stay put, somebody will surely spot us."

Without warning, the hammer bro then held his head, as if in pain, dropping his mallet as quickly as he himself collapsed onto the ground. He snarled at his former comrades as he charged towards them both; Mario picked up the mallet and, with great ferocity, swung the weapon at the hostile, knocking them out instantly.

The figure of a certain assistant then stepped before the duo, "I've been looking for you, Mario."

"YOU!" The plumber shouted. He was fuming at the mere sight of Dimentio, the man who had the audacity to get between him and sweet vengeance. "Your boss has some real nerve to hurt my little brother."

"I understand your anger sir, but that does not make it in any way right for you to knock people into dangerous artifacts of mass destruction. We are trying to do something good here." Said Dimentio.

"Does it look like I care?" The plumber replied, annoyed by the other's unnecessary use of advanced vocabulary. "What 'good' could you possibly have in store for me?"

The koopa troopa, now cowering behind Mario, starred at the group of koopas and goombas before them who now followed the orders of Mistress Tempo. The ratio of those were and weren't brainwashed into joining the new cause was split quite evenly, and the ones that joined willingly seemed too frightened of the brainwashing process to defend their unconverted brethren.

"I can assure you, your brother is alive and well." Dimentio firmly asserted, "But it is to my knowledge that you do not approve of his adventurous desires. Our new universe holds promise that your dearest sibling would never need to fight for your kingdom again, for we would live in a universe without war or conflict." He paused, "You could live in peace."

The hiding koopa perked up upon hearing this news. "A-a world of peace? That would be nice...and all I'd have to do is join you?" It asked.

Dimentio smiled in affirmation, nodding his head. The koopa scurried to his side, receiving a deceived glare from Mario behind its back.

"Well Mario?" The assistant asked, primed to snap his fingers again.

The man in red had the hammer raised, his grip tight on it. After a few moments, he made his choice without a second thought…

* * *

"Sorry I'm late."

"It's fine, did something happen?"

"My mother, she was up later than normal. I was worried I wouldn't make it here."

"You are a strange girl…you know what I am and yet you do not seem afraid."

"I don't care what you are. I just wanted to see you. Is that…Is that so wrong?"

"No. No, of course not. I wanted to see you, too."

"Blumiere, do you mind if I sit next to you?"

"Please do, Timpani. Let's return to our conversation. I must know more of you…"

* * *

Exiting the orange door, Luigi and the others were immediately met by Merlee.

"My friends, you return! Do you have the heart we yearn?"

"We sure do!" exclaimed Bowser, who held the Heart in his claws. Luigi thought it was fair that, since he'd delivered the first two Pure Hearts, the koopa king himself should carry the next two. Bowser wouldn't admit it himself, but the particular Pure Heart gave him a feeling of personal familiarity, like he was carrying his own soul in the artifact; compared to the previous Pure Hearts, Luigi felt a more violent aura from the heart, but, like before, did not question why it felt like that.

"Merlon pretty much confirmed that we'd need four heroes to save the universe, which isn't that surprising since he'd told you and me that last time he visited." Said Blecky, "I'll admit though, getting to see his mansion was pretty neat, if a bit tedious."

"If he already told you guys, why did he tell us?" Luigi asked.

"He technically wasn't suppose to tell anyone beforehand," said Blecky, "but apparently there was some hubbub about certain oversights in the Light Prognosticus and something about ghosts and a butterfly effect. I was too tired at the time to remember his explanation, but I'm sure the reasoning will be brought up again in the near future."

Suddenly, the ground and sky shook violently as the small Void in the sky grew bigger, and more noticeable.

Merlee looked at the ground, "Time grows short I fear, but we mustn't shed a tear." She then looked up, somewhat hopeful, "The books of old, both dark and light, depict one to choose which fate is right. Known as the 'Man in Green', he is someone that we've seen."

"It's me, right?" Luigi asked, looking away from everyone, "One of Tempo's cronies referred to me as 'Man in Green' before, but I didn't realize it meant anything."

"It certainly explains why they've only wanted us captured." Said Bowser, "If everyone truly believes that some guy dressed in green is solely responsible for deciding the fate of the universe, they're gonna want to make sure that guy dressed in green is on their side."

"Which means me getting captured and brainwashed by Team Tempo might not be in my best interests…"

"I must go for time being. All of you I'll be seeing." Merlee mumbled, noticeably uncomfortable with the situation and unsure on how to comfort the green-clad hero.

"Hey pal, try not to be so down on yourself." Blecky chirped, "We've got your back. I've been training my entire pixl life to help you save the universe. I'll fight tooth and nail to make sure you make it to the very end!"

Luigi chuckled a bit as the little bat punched the air between flaps his wings for emphasis, catching the pixl when he lost his flight rhythm and began to fall.

"I'll be backing you up, too, you know." Bowser added, "And the other pixls will be helping too I'm sure."

Said pixls cheered from inside Luigi's bag, getting another a chuckle from him.

"Thanks guys." Luigi said, "Now lets go find a Heart Pillar."

The group made their way to the elevator where they rode to the second floor and headed in the direction of the town's outskirts where the Pure Heart's natural energies led them to its respected pillar, although it seemed hesitant to head in the direction of the second Pure Heart before continuing to push forward. A downward slope led the group to the underbelly of town, where the ancient brick walls on either side had doorway-like wide openings with intricate wire designs within that both held up the ruin and allowed for light to enter it.

A particularly sturdy wall near the end of the hall blocked the Heroes from reaching the Heart Pillar on the other side; a thin opening in the wall had been precariously filled with a bolt pattern etched above said opening, it was as if there had been a time when a different pixl was needed to access the pillar, but a last minute change forced for an improvisation. Nonetheless, Bowser called for Fleep to use his powers on the bolt pattern, bringing the group to the other side of the wall.

Bowser felt the resonance of the Pure Heart and set it free, watching the Heart launch itself into place in its spectacle of clockwork patterns.

Content with their work, Luigi pulled out the Return Pipe that Merlee had given him, using it to bring them back to the top of Flipside Tower instantly to spare their legs the extra mileage.

"I think we can all agree that Merlon's Mansion sucked, so I'm going to get us reservations at the Inn so we're rested for tomorrow." Luigi said groggily, the pixls already fast asleep in his inventory bag. The rest of the evening consisted of Bowser stopping by the first floor to pick up dinner before everyone went through their personal rituals and tucked in for the night.

Even with his friends' reassuring words, Luigi couldn't help but struggle to fall asleep that night as he accounted all mentions of the conflicting prophecies that were described to him since his initial arrival.

There were mentions of 'fair and noble princess' and a 'ferocious monster king', even though Peach and Bowser were quite the opposite of those, and there was the quote provided after the first that only accounted for a singular hero. While Merlee had previously insisted that the Light Prognosticus mention four heroes, Blecky was the first to confess that she was bluffing and that their knowledge on four heroes came from Merlon; the Light Prognosticus only mentioned one hero. The prophecy just seemed too disjointed and riddled with problems, and the odd adjustments he'd seen with the first Heart Pillars all seemed to suggest the prophecy had another hero and other pixls in mind for the adventure at hand.

Perhaps he was thinking about it too hard; after all, he'd only collected three Pure Hearts, one of which he technically didn't need to work for, so it was a bit early to jump to conclusions onto what was probably some kind of coincidence. Luigi contemplated a while more before finally finding sleep; he could've sworn he heard whispers right before he drifted off and again when he and the others passed through the Yellow Door into the new world ahead of them.

* * *

 **Feels good to be back, I'll try to actually get these chapters done since I'm sure somebody is still wanting this to get done.**

 **I've also got a couple of new stories that aren't Super Paper Mario-related up right now that are for a little indie-studio game called A Hat in Time, so feel free to check those out if you're interested!**


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